


Cashmere

by WhiskeySoda



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Accidental Incest, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Busking, Churches & Cathedrals, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Half-Sibling Incest, M/M, Needless religious undertones, Poor boy Woojin, Rich boy Seungmin, Semi-Public Sex, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-08-28 07:10:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16718737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiskeySoda/pseuds/WhiskeySoda
Summary: Seungmin and Woojin could have kept up the hot air and red faced guise of rivalry for forever. If fate and time insisted that they grow and demanded that they become softer around the edges, they would’ve eagerly settled for best friends. Instead, Seungmin charges in and drives the cold from his bones by draping his body in sun kissed cashmere. Finding out that they’re half-brothers doesn’t stop them from falling in love.





	1. Chapter 1

The tips of Woojin’s fingers have always been cold. When he was young, they lived with great grandma in a crumbling high rise meant for elderly pensioners. Crammed into a single, too small bedroom, there was never enough kerosene for the heater.

When he sang, whether it in the cavernous cathedral, or on the streets for coins, his fingers were cold.  His voice, bright and clear, offered the dangerous promise of warmth.  Quickly becoming a favorite of the nuns and the priests at the cathedral, he was shoved to the front of the choir. Then there were solos at midnight mass on Christmas. Although people came from miles and miles for these sacred holidays, in the end it was just God, the cold, and him.

Then, for a time, there was warmth. When Woojin left home, he filled his suitcase filled with too many folders of sheet music, and not nearly enough clothes. Folded in between button down shirts was a warning offered by sister Yoo. “Don’t let your dreams get hung out to dry. They’ll shrivel in the sun.” Her smile was wide; her left eye was ominous and milky.

Woojin was okay with getting left out to dry, if it meant warmth.

Until right now.

This time, Woojin can’t quite place what it is that he’s done wrong. His voice has never been in better condition. His piano exams were flawless, his dress recital immaculate. With every practice and every evaluation, he can see improvement. Woojin’s begun to replace his morning coffee with Chan for herbal tea for the sake of his voice, and it’s paid off. Entering his fourth year, he’s at the very top of his class.

Yet and still, the department chair sends him a letter on crisp stationary and thick black ink to his dorm room informing him of the specific duties required for his assistanceship this academic year. The gesture, envelope and seal, radiate ostentatious stupidity. It takes more energy to letter than it does to send an email.  

Regardless of how pointless the gesture may be, Woojin has no choice other than obey. As the department chair’s classroom assistant, his main task will be avoiding his tempestuous rage. Now, he sits at the upright piano in the practice room. The first-year students stand shoulder to shoulder against the large floor to ceiling windows.  With the windows cracked open, gentle autumn breeze bustles into the room and upsets the thin gauzy curtains.

The chill in the room, which is brought on by the wind and the department chair’s perpetual scowl, is melted away completely when Woojin looks down the long row of first year students. In a row of uncertain smiles, one stands out. He’s bright and confident, like a single blossom in a sea of fresh spring green. The first year’s lips curls into a smile that signifies both confidence and mischief.

Woojin knows such an expression well. He wears it into the concert hall when he needs it the most, and into the practice room when he needs it for no other reason than he likes wearing it.

When their eyes meet, Woojin feels like he’s known this boy that he’s never met before for a very long time.  The thick eerie tension in the room is replaced by something else far more ominous. All Woojin can feel and hear is the rapid beating of his heart, and it becomes an ill functioning metronome for practice.

When asked to play, Woojin slides his palms over his knees, furtively trying to wipe off the cold sweat that lingers there.

The conservatory lives up to its reputation of being cutthroat and harsh. Woojin’s seen plenty of students dismissed for not memorizing the first piece of the term perfectly.  He can remember the way that sweat rolled down his back and the way his heart rattled in its cage.

But that’s over now. He’s a fourth year, and by this time the school has invested so much that dismissal of a fourth-year student is almost unheard of. But in this movement Woojin feels that he’s no different from the line of first year students before him. All because of a single smile.

The black lacquer bench creaks in protest when he sits down. The soles of his shoes snag against the carpet, and his nerves are put on display.

Woojin is able to play for the first four students without issue. The first girl, a sharp soprano, the second, an alto with an unrefined technique. Woojin is surprised when she isn’t dismissed immediately.  On and on down the line until…

 “Kim Seungmin, from Seoul, age eighteen. Nice to meet you professor.”

Suddenly, the cool in the room evaporates. The wool sweater that did nothing to shield him from the chill of the department chair’s omnipotent gaze becomes stifling, the fibers scratch against Woojin’s skin.

Seungmin’s smile is crooked, starting on one half of his face, and then spreading to the other slowly. Symmetry is merely an afterthought. When he sings, Seungmin’s voice caresses the nape of Woojin’s neck and soothes the place where his wool sweater itches his skin.

It begins normally. Woojin playing, and Seungmin singing. Woojin’s fingers move down the keys, but each correct note is a miracle. And how many rapid miracles can he truly expect to have in succession?

Seungmin goes into the bridge, hitting the high notes.  

Woojin misses a note in the refrain, another in the bridge and another still. His fingers feel fat, swollen, and clumsy, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Seungmin sings on, unbothered by Woojin’s error.

* * *

 

When Seungmin was quite young, he had a fever that seemed to have no end. He couldn’t go to school, and he couldn’t get out of bed. Pinned in place by the small mountain of blankets his mother covered him, his body ran hot. His skin was covered in mottled, angry , red pink patches that were warm to the touch.

When his fever broke, the heat never subsided. His mother continued to dress him in cashmere, and scratchy wool, and thick coats that went over top of all of it. Counter to everything that she’d wanted to do, his body would become clammy cold with sweat.

Even now when he takes great care to select his own clothes, and sleeps every night with the window open, his body runs hot.

Right now is no exception.

Seungmin’s ears burn with the kind of sting-shame heat that only comes from being completely and thoroughly embarrassed. The feeling compliments the wrenching feeling in his gut, cause it’s nobody’s fault but his own.

His own ruin is set into motion when he charges into the audition room to take his crack at the Autumn Liederabend. Seungmin arrives late to the audition and asks the pianist to play for him. Even though they’re only a few weeks into classes, he recognizes his broad nose, clumsy fingers, and a smile that inexplicably cranks up the stifling heat in any given room. The room goes silent, Seungmin just _assumes_ that it’s because he’s the only first year with the gall to audition for a solo position. Like, sure it’s _rare_ for first years to get cast, but why _not_ try.

“Uh, I know it’s short notice, but can you play _this_ for me?” Seungmin pulls a crisp piece of sheet music from a file, and hands it to him. Strange that he’s not seated at the piano.

The windows are open, but the classroom burns from the heat of overeager radiators, just turned on for the first time since April. Swear to god, Seungmin can hear the chirp of crickets outside.

The pianists looks at him in silent amusement. A bold emotion for someone who’s wearing the same jacket for the third time this week. “Yeah, sure.” Then, there’s laughter around him when he speaks, like Seungmin doesn’t quite understand some joke and wouldn’t find it funny if he did.

Seungmin sings his selected piece better than he’s ever gone through it in practice. Of course, Dr. Kang looks down the bridge of his nose at him over gold wire rimmed glasses, frantically jots notes, the corner of his mouth going slack while the rest is held firmly in place in a scowl.

“And while you’re here Mr. Kim,” but the instructor’s gaze isn’t settled on Seungmin, but the pianist instead, “do you want to go ahead and perform your audition?”

“Sure—” the crisp sound of sheet music turning sounds like a howling wind coursing through the room.

Oh god. He’s not _just_ a pianist. He’s a student. Probably an upperclassman too. Maybe he’s a teacher’s aide. Maybe he just really likes playing piano for class exercises. Either way he’s committed a grave social error. If his mother has taught him anything, social errors committed in negligence are absolutely unforgivable.

“Can someone play for me?”

“Seungmin will do it for you Woojin”

For a moment, Seungmin’s body just won’t move, even though he knows the director has ordered him to do something.

“Since you so kindly did it for him. Right?”

Lurch forward, trip over his own toes, Seungmin finally makes it onto the bench.

Passing Woojin their eyes meet briefly. Despite Seungmin’s mistakes, Woojin’s expression is wide eyed and apologetic.  

What happens next is nothing more than what he absolutely deserves. The aria that Woojin sings is a Verdi piece that he fell in love with long ago.  Eight or nine years old, he was crammed into a starched white shirt with scratchy sweater vest over top. Seungmin sweat through his clothes to the divine sound.

When he was thirteen, he saw a performance in Germany. When he heard it again he was at that akward, petulant stage where the best way to display one’s passion is to not only hide it, but vehemently deny it. Didn’t stop him from falling in love all over again.

Now, when he’s eighteen, he hears the most perfect version yet performed by a boy named Kim Woojin, not a third rate pianist but a world class singer.

Although Seungmin’s body has always run hot, he feels as if shame and infatuation burn at him from both ends.

But Seungmin’s greatest crime isn’t mistaking Woojin’s rank, or Woojin’s role. No, it’s when the auditions are finished Leaning upon the grand piano at which Woojin still sits, Dr. Kang looks over his notes and decides he need not wait to announce the lead role for the Autumn recital. The heat is drawn from the room, and a cold winter’s chill barges in unannounced. “Congratulations Seungmin.”

* * *

 

Seungmin comes into the neatly pressed conservatory, and tears through all the sheet music with his brilliance. There’s no note too high, no composition too difficult.

Seungmin comes into the neatly pressed conservatory and throws his quarter million won jacket onto a crumpled heap on the floor. Thriving on chaos, and generating it with a smile, it’s easy to become simultaneously irritated and enamored with Seungmin.  

Seungmin’s early for the first year’s English diction class. Woojin’s in-between classes. Wrists numb from second year Italian diction going over by twenty minutes, Woojin’s got…He’s tried to ignore the _tick-tock_ opposite of the metronome for the better part of two hours. Now, he checks the wall clock purposefully. purposefully. Nine minutes before it all starts over again.

“Hey,” Seungmin walks in, cuffs of his sleeves rolled up, suspenders pushed down dangling by his knees. Conservatory students are instructed to dress professionally, but Seungmin’s attire more closely represents formal concert attitude.

It’s a lot to take in on a Tuesday afternoon.

 “How are you?” Nice, bright, earnest. Irritating.

 Woojin’s not _upset_ that Seungmin got lead role. Woojin understands that Seungmin’s voice is absolutely perfect for the part. Woojin understands that all of his third year, spring, summer, autumn, and Christmas show, he swept up lead role. He’s not _upset,_ but he is envious that Seungmin can capture what took him two full years to obtain.

Maybe it evens out. Woojin messes up Seungmin’s song on the first day of the term. Seungmin shifts the spotlight away in Woojin’s confusion.  

If Woojin were smart, he’d offer an olive branch to Seungmin. Childish as it may be, he offers a jest instead. Woojin rationalizes it by arguing that it isn’t the kind that stings, just the kind given to friends.  And really, _really,_ it’s meant to soothe in a roundabout kind of way. “Want me to play you a warm up?”

A thick tangible silence wedges its way between Seungmin and Woojin. Seungmin looks at him expectantly, as if Woojin expects Seungmin to give him the _right_ answer. Naive, like Seungmin believes that there is a right answer.

“Seungmin,” Woojin interrupts himself with a laugh. “I’m being serious. I know you first years had theory this morning, you haven’t used your voice all day.”

Just like that, the atmosphere changes. Seungmin finally, finally throws back on the smile that he constantly wears in the same way that he’ll inevitably pick up the blazer off the ground, shake it out, and put it over his shoulders. “Sure.”

Woojin rolls his fingers over simple scales, Seungmin hitting each and every one. “Ready for more?”

“I don’t know,” Seungmin quips. “You gonna play it correctly?” Recalling back to the day when they first met, Seungmin is impish, playful, and comfortable with pushing back.

“You know,” Woojin’s fingers move up an octave. It’s a dick move, but what else can he do? Seungmin’s face is round, his cheeks are full, and his suspenders are pink and white paisley. He looks incredibly cute for someone who so quickly carved out his role as Woojin’s rival. Woojin would absolutely love to crush the crush that’s stomping on his throat and making it hard to breathe, but Seungmin doesn’t really give him much of a choice at all. “I’ve spent all week convincing myself that I wasn’t mad. But now?”

 Woojin plays the first few keys of Otello.

He’s no more than two measures in when Seungmin laughs, “you’re a jerk, but ah—”

The piece he’s chosen is one of the most difficult tenor parts every written for the stage. Much like pink paisley isn’t suitable for class on a Tuesday, the overture isn’t appropriate for warm up. But, Seungmin calls his bet nonetheless.

Seungmin’s voice is clear, bright, and hits every single note. Nothing less than expected for the autumn recital’s lead vocalist.

Seungmin sits on the opposite edge of the piano bench, and the lacquer bench creaks with surprise at the extra weight. “You should warm up too right? Fourth year vocals are after this right?”

An apology that never needed to be uttered, Woojin fully accepts anyway. Seungmin plays for him on the piano, this time by choice. Woojin’s voice is scratchy, and he hasn’t warmed up, but he meets Seungmin note for note.

The sun shines in from the parted curtains burning a hole through the shirt that Woojin agonized over ironing this morning.  Piano days meant making sure that all the lines were neatly pressed. Now? The garment feels wadded up and wrinkled upon Woojin’s body. As Woojin sings, the sun stares at him from across the bench in frighteningly genuine slack jawed wonder.

Suddenly, the diction instructor charges in, tie loosened, sheet music flying from his unzipped briefcase. “Woojin, here’s the piece for today.”

Never mind the fact that he was supposed to receive all of the music on Monday. Sight reading it is.

There’s no trade off at the second verse. No whisper soft sound of breath, barely controlled after a hasty warm up. All Woojin and Seungmin can do is look at each other with quiet admiration. It speaks more than they’ve ever said to one another in person.

* * *

 

The sound of a sob is unmistakable; Woojin has grown accustomed to such noises in these halls.  especially when Woojin’s heard the soft echo of so many in these halls.

It happens so quickly, depress the handle to the practice room, half step inside, and then the world stops with the stifled sound of a sob. Woojin’s been at conservatory long enough to have tried everything. Option one: walk away and pretend like it’s nothing. This is a surprisingly effective tactic, and very rarely considered crass. Disengaging in such a way buys him someone else’s ignorance when he’s weak and on display and just wants to be left alone.

 Option two: walk away. Walk to the corner store, buy a pint of chocolate ice cream, and return with the ice cream. But he really only does that for Changbin, and he really only does it for selfish reasons. Changbin’s reaction is hilarious beyond whatever frustration he’s experiencing. Cheeks streaked with tears, Changbin will complain that he forgot the spoon or that he doesn’t like the flavor of cherry cordial.

But, he doesn’t think Seungmin will react that way. In fact, if Woojin leaves, there is a very real possibility Seungmin will lock him out or leave altogether.

For whatever reason, that sounds absolutely awful.

So that leaves option three.

Seungmin looks at him with the narrow pupils, clenched muscle, grimace that only happens when frustration, lighting fast, morphs into fear.

“Hey,” hands up, palms out, Woojin’s only as harmless as someone whose seen too much. “It’s just me.” 

“Woojin,” Seungmin takes the hem of the arms of his cream colored, oversized wool sweater and dabs away tears. “You’re not supposed to see me like this.”

 “Why, cause you’re the golden child of the first year? Cause you’re the only one that Baby Changbin can’t push around?” The piano bench creeks with the added weight of his body. Despite the tension thick in the air, it feels more natural than when they sat together in the classroom. Unable to be idle, Woojin begins to tap out the simple chords to a song he knew in childhood. “Or because you don’t want anyone to think you’re ungrateful for getting the lead role if anybody knows that you’re stressed?”

No response, so Woojin keeps going. “Ah. I know what will make you feel better.” Woojin plays through the intro, and it’s so, so, so stupid, but he starts singing at the verse, “I’m a barbie girl, in a barbie world.”

Seungmin makes a defeated groan into his cupped hands. “Can you just go away?”

“Not until you feel better. What good is having a rival if you’re sad?” Woojin doubles down by cocking his head and sing to Seungmin in his very best timbre, “Life is plastic, it’s fantastic.”

On and on until Seungmin responds in the flattest voice he can muster, “come on Barbie, let’s go party!”

Only when Seungmin cracks a reluctant smile does Woojin speak again. “No, it’s really funny when you get under Changbin’s skin. He does that thing where he forces a smile. Like it was his idea in the first place.”

“Oh, you mean like this?” Seungmin pumps a forced grin onto his face, looks down and to the left in a dead-on impression of Changbin.

“Exactly!” Woojin rests his hands on Seungmin’s shoulder, intimate but safe. “You know what else?”

“What?” Muffled and pathetic.

 “First year absolutely sucks. If you came down here every single night and bawled your eyes out, I wouldn’t blame you.”

“It’s kind of pathetic. What I’m crying because I got lead role?”

“Um, yeah? You’re in rehearsal for four or five hours. Then classes. So, when are you going to find time to write your theory papers? And your roommate snores and keeps you up at night.”

“How’d you know that?”

“He rattles the windows. I can feel it all the way upstairs.”

At that, finally, Seungmin laughs.  “He’s so loud. Not just the snoring. He talks all the time.”

“Chan’s my roommate. He’s better now, but first year he kept me up all night with his desk lamp, and the constant typing, and that weird noise that samplers make when you jam the buttons.”

“Oh my god.” 

“What else,” Woojin repeats himself. “What else? You miss home?”

He nods no. “My parents live in Seoul.”

“Yeah,” Woojin responds. “Wasn’t a problem for me either.”

Seungmin’s sniffles have slowed, but the tension in the room is still thick, to the point of being tangible. The question lingers in the back of Woojin’s mind. How much? How much does he want to show?

“I shouldn’t be upset. This is my dream,” Seungmin confesses.

“Mine too, and I used to cry a lot when I first moved here.”

“What changed?”

 “I don’t know.” The bench protests again when Woojin rises. “I kept working, and I kept crying, and,” they’ve been dancing around it for days now. Friends or enemies? Woojin has plenty of the former, and no time at all for the latter. So, the choice is simple. “I still cry sometimes…” Woojin’s voice trails off as he extends his hand to Seungmin. “Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

 

Growing up, Woojin saw the city in movies and in television shows and saw something beautiful. Now, he’s lived here long enough to see the hairline cracks in the façade: drunks that slept through the night at the station, old women who sell canned drinks in the park with the promise of something more, pretty women charging through the streets with smeared makeup at three A.M.  Despite all of it, Woojin’s wide eyed wonder still lingers. The neon lights of the city shine like jewels in sapphire, ruby, and topaz. The Han river smells like dead fish, and sometimes like trash. LED signs advertise face cream, and watches, and leather loafers that he’ll never be able to afford, but all of it is beautiful. The fact that Woojin has worked hard enough to live here, and the fact that he can see it every day if he wants, is beautiful.

“What are we doing?” Seungmin huffs and puffs, breath turning to steam in the bitter cold air. Yamaha case swung over his shoulder. His cheeks are flushed red, and it’s strange. Woojin’s gloves are threadbare. He’s got a hole in the bottom of his shoe that lets the cold in.

He’s never felt warmer.

“You’ll see”

Woojin used to feel like he didn’t belong here because he’s just a poor boy from Jeonju. During his first year, he used to wake up every night in a cold sweat from dreams of being found out in the conservatory. Here, where the rent is astronomical, and the dinner comes in three courses, he sticks out, and somehow it’s okay. A guitarist sets up an open case a few meters away. Further down, a troupe of middle school b-boys, out way past their bedtime, dance for change and for validation. Everybody knows they’re not supposed to be here, and because of it there’s no need to hide. No pressure either. No open auditions in front of their peers, or director staring down at them from his wire rimmed glasses.

They probably, definitely shouldn’t stop right in front of the river front hotel. The night security has _definitely_ chased him off before, but the view is so good it steals his breath away each and every time.

“Look good?” Woojin turns to the river and drops his microphone case.

“Huh—” Seungmin turns on his heel and faces the river.

For a moment, there is only the wonderful kind of silence that emerges from chaos. The noise of luxury cars at valet, the ping of bicycle bells, all muted because of the way the city makes them anonymous. One in thousands.

“Yeah,” Maybe for the first time, Seungmin’s at a loss for words. “So pretty.”

Woojin takes the Yamaha case from over Seungmin’s shoulder, the tips of his fingertips brushing against wool. Then, Woojin pops out the legs on the Yamaha keyboard, hooks up the battery pack that’s on it’s very last leg, and throws his old newsboy cap onto the ground alongside a few of his own coins to get things going. 

Even with his cap removed from the crown of his head warmth remains.

“Oh come on, you’ve lived in the city your whole life. I’m the local from nowhere.” It’s impossible not to tease. “I hear that living in Seoul’s like living in the future. I heard there’s a Costco.”

“So futuristic,” Seungmin doesn’t skip a beat. “The train is always on time, but the people are always in a hurry,” but Seungmin’s sarcasm is short lived. “But like—”

Woojin watches in rapt fascination as Seungmin’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows.

“It’s different. Like, it’s been a long time since I’ve been down here, and the last time I was here did I even pay attention?”

The river took his breath away the first time that he saw it, and never stopped staring in slack jawed wonder. But…Woojin can relate, far more than Seungmin will know. “In travel books and stuff, the cathedral in Jeonju is always listed as something to see.”

“it’s pretty.”

“Growing up I hated it. An hour bus ride into the main city. It’s drafty,” because he’s always been cold. “Just so I could sing. But people traveled long distances to see it, and it made them happy.”

It goes silent for a moment, Woojin setting things up, and Seungmin taking it all in, the lights, the shops, and the people. Woojin wonders how Seungmin feels right now. Does he feel like someone who belongs? Or like someone who exists here on borrowed time?

“This is what you do to make you feel less sad? Sing?” Seungmin asks.  

“I am a singer, maybe you’ve heard of the conservatory?” Woojin laughs.

“I mean, it’s just like, that’s what we do all day.”

“It’s different,” Woojin takes Seungmins words and turns them back on him. He could easily earn a few thousand per night at busking. Not much, but enough to afford drinks with his friends without worrying, or grab noodles at the café down the street from the conservatory. His first year, it paid for his formal concert attire when his assistanceship couldn’t stretch far enough. Those coins and little crumpled bills felt like they were the only thing saving him from getting found out. The arts are for those who can afford it, and so many of his classmates are come from families that can afford an artist. “If you get kicked off a spot, you just move further down. Not like you have to recalibrate your whole life.”

“Right.” Seungmin doesn’t sound convinced.

“What kind of song do you want to sing? I know pretty much everything.”

“Uhm—”

“But let me tell you, this crowd doesn’t exactly like contemporary Korean opera.”

“Oh, man that’s exactly what I was gonna suggest,” he responds with a laugh. Seungmin pulls out his phone, unlocks the screen, and searches for lyrics. “Do you know this one?” The screen shines brightly in Woojin’s face.

“Yeah, I love that one.”

Almost immediately, Woojin’s fingers go on autopilot and glide across the keys. Closing his eyes he becomes lost in the music, doesn’t even stop and think to be worried about someone stealing the cap and his meager pocket change with it. Tonight? Money doesn’t matter. Just the music and making  Seungmin happy.

“It’s been seven hours and fifteen days—” the song seems appropriate for this kind of night, when the air is crisp and the moon hides behind a shrouded veil of clouds.

When they trade off, Seungmin grabs his flimsy practice microphone from the stand and sings out. The sound of Seungmin’s voice is warm and soft, as if velvet were caressing Woojin’s ears.  “Nothing compares to you.” For such a sad song, he smiles so widely that Woojin can see his back molars.

When the first song is finished, Woojin flashes new lyrics on his phone, “do you know this one?”

Back and forth until the bars emptied out, “do you know this one?”

With each pass of the microphone, Woojin can taste the scent of the river grow stronger on his tongue. Being with Seungmin and feeling warm with Seungmin plants a dangerous thought in his mind. Maybe. Maybe he was lonely all of the other times he scraped for change at the river. Maybe Seungmin makes him feel…less lonely.

The truth is told and untold one cent at a time with the _clink-clink_ of each coin that’s put into Woojin’s hat.

Time passed in between songs are spent in the kind of silence that isn’t familiar, but warms the shell of his ears anyway

And responses like, “that’s a good one,” and “my favorite,” and “wait? Do I know this one?” Soon enough, Seungmin’s anxiety grows tired and takes leave for the evening. Woojin and Seungmin are left alone to try to make one another laugh, and try to woo older college girls in club attire that want nothing to do with them.  

“You’re like a good luck charm,” Woojin says when it’s after two in the morning and all the bars are closed. “Makes up for having to split.” Picking his cap up off the ground, Woojin quickly divides bills and change, putting his own share into his frayed wallet

Seungmin puts the small bills into his own made of leather with tentative fingers like it’s a formality and he’s not really sure what to do with small bills.

Woojin would gladly take them back if they were such a nuisance.

“It was really fun,” Seungmin admits. “In a way singing hasn’t been in awhile. Like I got so caught up in getting in, and then staying in, and—”

“It’s really easy to forget that singing feels good. Right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Whenever you feel like you’ve forgotten, I’ll probably feel that way too. Then we can come here.”

* * *

 

Woojin would like to believe after years of singing on the street, he’s able to size people up. Men walk by with women that cost a million won an hour their arms. Those same women will titter into their ears, and adjust their fur coats around their shoulders, and point to him.

Those men never give him a cent.

The drunk kids with daddy’s credit card give him some money, some of the time. Small bills and pocket change, they use him to prove to themselves that they’re generous, down to earth, and not at all like their parents.

Now, the new money…New money kids drink champagne like they’re in the desert. They giftwrap themselves in trendy clothes they just can’t wait to tear off of one another. They peel bills out of their wallet like it’s a production.

But the best gifts of all come in the form of small bills when he’s packing up from the night. Waiters, and bar tenders, chefs and valets offer small bills like whispers of solidarity.

Woojin would like to believe after twenty-one years on the street he’s able to size people up. Walking home, Seungmin stops at a late-night sandwich shop and uses all of his share of the money to buy them food. The crinkle of wax paper becomes the crinkle of bills spent. The bread is crusty and laden with seeds. From every direction, thick cuts of cured meat, yellow cheese, and pungent onions overflow from the bread. It’s the kind of thing that Woojin rarely buys himself, and when he does, it’s only to blend in with the others.

It’s nice to just have Seungmin do it for him. No need to contemplate if it’s worth it, or if he can get out of it and save the money for an emergency that hasn’t yet come.

Woojin would like to believe that after twenty-one years on the street he’s able to size people up. In a roundabout way, Seungmin becomes new money. Fresh off the high of earning something for himself, he makes a scene of presenting Woojin with a gift most extravagant.

“It gets better though right?”

“The stress?” Woojin asks, mouth half full. “The inadequacy? The anxiety?”

“Yes,” Seungmin answers simply.

“Well…” Woojin considers choosing his words carefully, and then he just doesn’t. “It doesn’t get worse.”

They finish their food in silence, and before they duck back out into the cold Woojin buys them a single cup of coffee to share. Seungmin doesn’t know it yet, but he will soon. The best gifts of all come in the form of small bills when he’s packing up from the night. Small whispers of solidarity.

 “But listen,” the drink is warm against his fingers. As he takes a sip, viscous syrupy warmth slides down his throat. After all, Seungmin smashed four packets of sugar in it. Woojin doesn’t look at Seungmin when he speaks, his eyes are locked on the imprint of Seungmin’s lips on the cup that catch in the harsh street light “If you can’t make it here, the rest of us should go home.”

“Yeah right—”

“I’m serious. When I met you—” A confession bubbles on his tongue.

“You played the piano.”

“Yeah.” The fact that Seungmin remembers is nothing shy of a miracle. The only proof Woojin has of his own first evaluation is the fact that he’s still here. “I messed up the notes because I was amazed at how good you were.”

“Yeah?” Seungmin takes the cup from his fingers, and dry autumn static builds were the tips of their fingers meet and crackle across Woojin’s skin.

It never snows in October, but, it’s begun to snow now. Soft gentle flakes that won’t stick or accumulate fall onto the lapels of Seungmin’s jacket and melt against his nose. Woojin never lets other people in like this.

 Now it’s Seungmin’s turn to confess, because that’s the way these things tend to go. “I was so pissed off. You were so good. I wanted to hate you, and I wanted to be just like you.” Steam slowly drifts out of the hole in the lid and mingles with the fog of Seungmin’s breath. His lips and the tip of his nose are red-raw from the cold. “And it felt so unsatisfying when I got the part, and now you’re like one of the few people that are actually nice to me since I got the part.”

“I could be a lot nicer to you, considering how I actually feel.”

“So, could I.”

Suddenly they’re not walking anymore but facing one another.

When Woojin touches Seungmin’s skin, it burns despite the fact that it’s snowing. He’s unbuttoned his coat, and pulled off his cap. Seungmin and Woojin have this secret that they share, but neither of them have spoken it out loud. Until this very moment.

What happens next is like a prelude, their breaths mingle together in facsimile of the kiss that’s to come. Seungmin’s never experienced this kind of breathless moment where seconds melt into hours, but it feels so good.

Far from perfect, the bridges of their noses bump together. The frosty tip of Woojin’s nose presses against his skin and breaks through the fever. Seungin thought that the most beautiful sound that Woojin could make was in the practice room but he was so very, very wrong. The sound of Woojin sighing into his mouth and deepening the kiss is far sweeter.

Bold, to the point of indignation, Seungmin deepens the kiss, all but cramming his tongue into Woojin’s mouth. He wants this. He wants this so badly, and knowing that Woojin does too only intensifies the need triple fold.

When they finally part, Woojin kisses him again immediately. The soft peck on the mouth is given just to remind Seungmin that it’s real, and that it happened.


	2. Chapter 2

Everything changes down at the riverfront. 

 “What the—” Woojin reaches across Seungmin’s lap, plucking a delicate piece of mother of pearl from the empty seat on the other side of Seungmin. Neither Seungmin or Woojin are particularly thrilled to be at the ballet, but there’s one unspoken rule at conservatory. You show up, and then when it’s your turn they show up for you. So they come to support Minho without question. 

“Are these really?” Woojin pops the handle out, and presses the dainty binoculars to his face laughing through it all.

“Hey!” Seungmin swipes for the glasses, but Woojin leans back in his seat.

“Where did you get these?”

“My mother let me borrow them,” and he says it like he’s proud. Shouldn’t be surprising. Tonight, there’s a whole show on stage, but all eyes are on Seungmin. He’s wearing a suit made of silky, tangerine fabric and a royal blue tie. He’s not eccentric, he’s glamorous.

 “Oh,” Woojin turns to look at Seungmin with the glasses pressed to his eyes. “God you need to moisturize.”

“Oh, that’s funny,” Seungmin, in a desperate attempt to get the glasses back, all but climbs into Woojin’s seat. Bracing one hand against his thigh, and grabbing for his wrist, their chests collide.

Woojin feels cold in the drafty concert hall, but tangerine is such a warm color. It makes his cheeks flush red.

“Hey,” Chan, leans down from the row above, flicks Woojin on the ear, and squeezes Seungmin’s shoulder. “Knock it off.”

“Or get a room,” Changbin supplies.

“Listen,” Woojin leverages his weight, at the same time Seungmin recoils, knocking them both off balance and fumbling to steady themselves in their chairs.

The pads of Seungmin’s fingers dig into the sleek polyester fabric of Woojin’s slacks. Suddenly, his tie becomes a noose around his neck. Woojin bought his suit jacket a little too large, always assuming he’d grow into it but never did. Now? Now it feels tight. In situations like this, the best thing to do is deflect. “At least it hasn’t taken us what? Three years to realize we’re into each other.” Woojin shoots the insult over his shoulder at Chan and Changbin before stealing a private, mischievous glance at Seungmin.

Seungmin’s complexion is bright crimson, and it’s a little nice to know that Seungmin wants to get out of here just as much as he does.

“Wow,” with Seungmin distracted, Woojin is free to place the opera glasses to his eyes. “Said it before. I’ll say it again. Minho’s got a great ass.”

Chaos erupts anew. Seungmin’s leaning back into his space, “now I really need those back.”

And Changbin’s buzzing in his ear, “let me see.”

Nothing changed at all when they kissed down by the river front.

* * *

 

Nothing changed at all when they kissed down by the riverfront.

“Baby, hold me till I explode. Stop thinking, what’s so hard about this?” Woojin belts out the lyrics like he’s never sang a day in his life.

Woojin is a fool. He knows this of course: theory grades, and continuing to room with Chan after all of these years. A few weeks ago he was irritated at Seungmin for wearing suspenders bound together with calf-skin on a Tuesday. Foolish. Nothing in comparison to a blazer with elbow patches on a Saturday at a karaoke bar. 

Woojin’s crossed Tuesday irritation off of his calendar, and all he has left is the sugar-spirit infatuation he feels for Seungmin on Saturday. 

Each brush of Woojin’s thick sweater against Seungmin’s blazer strokes a deceptively small and impossibly warm ember.

Woojin holds a microphone that, after years at the conservatory, feels and sounds like nothing more than a toy. Singing with Seungmin is the best feeling in the world, even here. Whenever they’ve gone to the bar in the past, other classmates sing over each other in a desperate attempt to hear their own voices. Woojin doesn’t exactly blame them. After all, they’re all so eager to ditch the delicate voices eked out by the instructors and reacquaint themselves with the bold voices they left at the administration office.

Pass of the mic, and it’s Seungmin’s turn. “Kiss me like it’s a lie. As if I’m your last love.”

Desperate for warmth, Woojin gulps down neon colored liquid served in tall stemmed glasses when the waitress bring them around. In no time at all he’s drunk.

Strawberry blush, like the taste of the plastic textured liquid on his tongue, rushes to his cheeks. Hot cheek pressed to hot cheek, he can hear the clear, joyous sound of Seungmin’s voice. It’s wonderful and comfortable until…

Minho wedges himself in-between them, grabbing the mic and starting the rap a half beat off tempo. Despite the fact that Minho studies dance, his voice is still commanding. Uh-I’mma fall in love, baby.” Although he and Seungmin picked this song _together,_ Woojin hardly minds. After all, this is Minho’s unofficial, official birthday party.

It’s tradition among the wealther students’ parents throw grand, extravagant parties, especially for their children. It’s tradition for the wealthier students to make up for the horrific black tie affairs with smaller, arguably seedier gatherings.

Next week, Minho’s going to have to put on a full suit and tie and get dragged around to meet all sorts of people that he doesn’t really care about. Let the birthday boy have what he wants. 

Pushed from the stage, Seungmin and Woojin slip behind some of the other first years that joined them, Hyunjin, and Jisung the snorer. Slinking back to the translucent grene lucite wall that divides their karaoke room from the rest of the bar, Woojin presses Seungmin into the sugar sticky glass.

Lips slick with spit, Seungmin takes Woojin’s lips between his teeth and bites them until they’re fat. The addictive sensation that nips at Woojin’s lips can only come from the kind of anxious kind of gnaw that signals inexperience.

With the sting comes the wonderful pressure- _pop_ sensation that only comes from having your head underneath water or being lost in someone very deeply. The loud, boisterous rhythm of club music is subdued from a frantic rattle to a dangerous throb.

Woojin traces the line of the other boy’s lips, and feels warm.

When he pulls back, all he can see is Seungmin.

Seungmin.

Seungmin makes him feel warm.

Everything changes down by the riverfront.

* * *

 

Just because he likes Seungmin, and just because there’s no other person Seungmin would never spend time with, doesn’t mean that Seungmin doesn’t stop irritating him completely. No, it actually gets worse somehow. Seungmin whispers seductively into his ear while simultaneously tickling his ribs.

“Getting ready for a date?” Seungmin stands at the doorway separating the long row of shower stalls from the long row of matching sinks. His stance is wide, and he holds his arms above his head, elbows jammed into the frame to make his body look as large as possible. Toothbrush in one hand, comb in the other, Seungmin’s hair lays damp and flat against his face. The way that his hair falls only amplifies the intensity of the smirk he’s put on just for Woojin.

“Yep.” Woojin breaks gaze with Seungmin in the mirror and leans over the sink to get closer to the mirror. As he moves, the cool metal faucet digs into his stomach. Pulling his upper lip tight over his teeth, Woojin rakes the razor in his hand across fluffy white shaving cream, revealing smooth skin. Woojin repeats this action several times, alternating with quick, flick of the wrist movements to get missed spots and stubborn stray hairs.

He doesn’t have to see Seungmin in the mirror to know that he’s being watched. It has the same sensation of having Seungmin pressed up next to him when they cram into one of the long twin beds. It’s the same as when Seungmin grabs him from behind, stands upon his tip toes, and rests his chin on his shoulder.

Of course it causes the same reaction too. Desire settles in Woojin’s stomach, and now that Seungmin’s around so often, he’s become quite familiar with it. He can best describe it as the feeling of having eaten and still feeling starved.

Woojin fills his cupped hands with water. The first splash is too cold, the second too hot as the water heats up. With it, he doesn’t just wash away the shaving cream, but the mask that he wears through the halls of the conservatory and often times forgets to take off at night before he goes to sleep. Maybe e’ll let Seungmin see.

When Woojin looks back at Seungmin in the mirror again, he’s greeted with the sight of Seungmin’s throat bobbing as he swallows thickly. Then, he speaks, “Where are you taking me?” 

When he’s finished shaving Woojin walks over to where Seungmin stands in the door frame. Woojin, takes both of Seungmins wrists into his hands, raises them up over Seungmin’s head and pins him to the cracked mosaic wall.

Woojin’s voice coltish, electric. “Some rich kid’s birthday party.” Seungmin doesn’t give Woojin the chance to taunt him further. Seungmin spins them around, and suddenly, it’s Woojin who is pressed against cool tile.

The toothbrush and comb fall to the floor with a disjointed _clatter-clatter._ Their lips press together with a lip-bump, tooth-clink, lip-brush.

“Sounds awful,” Seumgmin whispers against his lips.

Woojin can feel the warmth of Seungmin’s breath on his lower lip when he speaks.  Woojin laughs. It’s impossible for him to keep up whatever kiss-between-classes, shared-dorm-politeness they’ve been going through. So, regardless of the way that the door to the bathroom creaks, Woojin leans in for another kiss. Cloying, even without the distinctive coating of karaoke sugar on their tongues they stick together.

The distinctive groan of someone turning off the shower forces them to part reluctantly, “Absolutely awful.”

* * *

 

On the first floor of the dormitory, the coil radiators are cranked high in naive hope that the heat will drift to the floors above. Feverish chaos erupts in the room that is jammed to three times its capacity. Seungmin, his roommate Jisung, their first year friend Felix, and Woojin are here. Hyunjin wanders in and out of the room and back across the hallway as he pleases. Oh, and how could Woojin forget Seungmin’s old highschool classmate? Jeongin shucks his marigold school uniform for an offensive pink and black hounds tooth patterned shirt.

The room is absolutely stifling. The window, cracked open, lets in crisp autumnal air, but provides little relief.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, could cool Woojin off right now.

“C’mon, stop it.” Woojin’s trying to be coy, but honestly? The sight of Seungmin in a pressed white shirt and black shoe polish balanced on the arm of the rolling chair he’s seated in is going to give him a heart attack. And if that isn’t enough, the first few buttons of Seungmin’s shirt are undone, no tie. He smiles at Woojin with a fondness that is both addictive and terrifying. “I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”

“It’s fine and,” Seungmin’s got his legs spread wide, loafer wedged between his thighs. “You needed this done. They looked dingy.” Oh yeah, and his foot’s still inside the shoe. So while he does his best to not have a heart attack, and his best to not think about how his foot is _right_ up against Seungmin’s crotch, Seungmin makes his discount shoes shine so smooth he can see his own reflection.

Chaos erupts around them; Jisung cracks a towel at Jeongin. Naked. Jeongin squeals, knocks over a lamp, an alarm clock, and a dozen other knick-knacks on a nightstand. Unbothered, Felix continues to belt out girl group songs that blare from under powered laptop speakers in his overpowered baritone voice. But, for a moment, it’s quiet. Just him and Seungmin. All Woojin can think about his how badly wants to be alone with him again.

* * *

 

“Oh my god, all that and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet?” Seungmin quips.

After Woojin’s shoes shine, Seungmin seats at the makeshift vanity in the room, a sacrificed desk with a mirror tacked to the top shelf. No one would argue that conservatory students aren’t vain. He and Chan have a similar set up in their room during recital season. Seungmin’s got a couple million won, easy, spilled out on the desk, a lighted mirror in the corner.

Concerned about a blemish so small that Woojin cannot even see, Seungmin dabs BB cream, hastily purchased from the drug store just off campus, onto his face. All the while Woojin hovers over his shoulder. His lips are dangerously close to the lobe of Seungmin’s ear.

“I’m just looking,” Woojin muses. Yeah, he should totally ask to borrow a pair of sterling silver cufflinks. Pull them fresh in the little blue box and wear the proudly engraved, “KSM.” Because they aren’t obnoxious enough when they’re together.

Jisung yells like they’re across the street from one another, but the room is only fifteen or so feet across. “Do you think there will be champagne?”

“I don’t think you have much to worry about,” Woojin supplies. “It’s Minho’s party, which means Minho’s _mom_ , is gonna be there.”

“Niiiice,” Jisung responds.

Woojin turns back to the mirror, fixes his tie, and watches Seungmin carefully.

Although the room never goes silent, the conversation stills between them. Then, “what’s this?” Woojin’s attention turns back to the jewelry spilled out onto the desk. He picks up a simple chain with a silver-set ring beaded through. The horrifically ostentatious estate ring band is bulky; the stone is shining sapphire. “Present from your boyfriend?”

“Actually,” Seungmin plucks it from his fingers, unclasps the chain, and removes it. “It’s a late birthday gift from my father. While I was here, toiling away over midterms, he was in Europe. Again.”

“It’s nice.”

“It’s way, way too big for me,” and as if to accentuate his point, Seungmin places the ring over his index finger, and shakes it off into his right hand. Palming the ring, and moving it to his left hand, he takes Woojin’s left hand in his. “You should have it,” Seungmin says pushing it down onto his middle finger.

“You can get it resized,” Woojin says this aloud, but regrets it immediately. It looks unbelievably good rested just below his knuckle; the blue pops against the olive tone of his skin. Not to mention, there’s something about knowing that Seungmin gave it to him that makes the gem seem bigger, the facets, sharper.

“Yeah but,” Seungmin catches his lip between his teeth like he’s about to say something important, but the words just never come. “I don’t want to,” quiet now, like a whisper.

There’s something that sounds distinctively like the riiiip of fabric, followed by a soft, almost whisper like, “oh no,” from Felix. From the corner of his eye Woojin can see a flash of shark patterned boxers, and before it even had the chance to begin, the moment is gone.

* * *

 

The carbon colored faceplate of Seungmin’s watch reads 21:17. In record time things have fallen absolutely apart.

Usually, Seungmin really likes parties. They’re a chance to see people that you always intend to, but never find time for. Tonight alone he’s seen several old friends that went on to different colleges, and people still at the performing arts high school that he hasn’t seen since the semester started. He’s done more social calling in the past ninety minutes than he’s done in the past three months.

Parties are also a chance to emerge from the cocoon of childhood and start anew. Seungmin is nineteen now. Tonight, he wears a brand new, crisp black suit. He’s nursed the same flute of champagne for over an hour now despite the fact that it flows freely. He’s calm, poised, and quite different from the sea of increasingly drunk conservatory students that fill the party. When the parents of his classmates look at him, they see someone that Seungmin himself would very much like to be. Calm, poised, confidant.

Because as it stands, he’s very much, _not_ those things. Everyone, absolutely everyone has asked him about his preparations for the Autumn recital. No matter how many hours he spends in the practice room, no matter how many nights Woojin whisks him away for busking, he doubts he’ll ever feel confidant. “Ah, yes, I am excited,” and “Yes, I am working hard. Every day.” Because of this, his mouth has turned to cotton, and the dry champagne does nothing to alleviate this feeling. So, he stops drinking. Body enveloped by a cold sweat, he’s now taking bets on the diameter of his pit stains.

So even though it’s quite obvious that Hyunjin is drunk, well on his way to being sloppy, and _none_ of the things that Seungmin would like to present himself as tonight, it’s clear that he’s Seungmin’s sweaty, rumpled-tie saving grace.

Hyunjjin careens into the conversation that Seungmin is trapped in. Wrapping one arm around Seungin’s shoulder sloppily and bowing slightly, Hyunjin takes Seungmin down with him at an uncomfortable angle. All Seungmin can do is protect his champagne and keep it from spilling.

“Auntie!”

Ah, he thought the woman who had him cornered looked familiar. After all, Seoul is quite small, and everyone knows everyone. They probably met before at one of Hyunjin’s families’ parties. “Sorry, but—” Hyunjin all but attacks him. “Seungmin said that he’d dance with me.”

What happens next is something he’d feel embarrassed about if he weren’t so desperate to break free of the women that dote upon him constantly.

Hyunjin buries his nose into the starched fabric of Seungmin’s suit jacket and nuzzles him through his clothes. If this kind of thing happened before, he’d think nothing of it. Now? Now he’s hyperaware of Hyunjin’s hand as it splays out across the small of his back.

“Seungmin, please.”

Hyunjin smells like Molton Brown brand shower gel, and doesn’t seem to mind that Seungmin is a walking sweat puddle. So, he allows Hyunjin to drag him away from his aunt and toward the dance floor, but not before he excuses them both.

Hyunjin is a dancer first and a musician second, and so it only makes sense that Hyunjin leads them. In wide, sweeping movements, they move across the dance floor. Turn on the heel, cross back. They’re at that lull in the evening where no one’s completely sober, but only the young ones are completely drunk, and no one has low enough inhibitions. Therefore, the dance floor is empty, and all eyes are on them.  “You’re my hero Hyunjin,” Seungmin fake swoons.

“I just wanted you to myself. You’re so hard to find these days. Always with your fourth-year friends, and never with us.”

Best friends for over a decade, Hyunjin’s actually taking his relationship pretty well considering the way that Seungmin handled Hyunjin’s first relationship. In comparison, there have been no shovel talks. Limited third wheeling. Maybe they’ve grown. Maybe. “You’re right. We didn’t spend all day together shopping for new clothes.”

“See if I ever save you from my aunt or any of my horrible relatives again.” Hyunjin’s body is pressed so close to Seungmin’s own that he can smell the champagne on his friend’s breath and count each and every long eye lash on his lids.

He can also feel the gaze of others. Elders in the room make so many assumptions about the both of them.  Their classmates love to gossip.

As their dance draws to a close, an icy draft pours into the room through the open wide French doors. The chill seeps in through the cuff of his suit and down the base of his neck offering much needed relief from the heat.

Then, Seungmin turns on his heel with Hyunjin’s arm linked in his own and sees the source of the chill.

Woojin stands against the wall delicately pinching the stem of a champagne flute. His throat bobs as he drinks. Woojin speaks with Minho with a smile upon his face, but his gaze never leaves Seungmin’s body, not for a second.

Most people would feel the overwhelming creep of dread if their boyfriend saw them like this. Instead, Seungmin peels himself away from Hyunjin and melts into Woojin. Friend. Boyfriend. It’s just that simple, and it feels so good.

Hyunjin on the other hand? Hyunjin seems just as delighted to steal Minho away from Woojin.  

Woojin’s body feels rigid against Seungmin’s own. Underneath the suit jacket, over his button down, Woojin’s hand splayed across the small of Seungmin’s back is purposeful and dangerous. His fingertips rest in the strange liminal space where his shirt is tucked into his slacks.

“Listen, Hyunjin’s aunt had me cornered. He rescued me by cutting in and…I know what it looked like but--” Panicked, cherry red heat returns to Seungmin’s face. “Would you dance with me?” Seungmin’s offer isn’t insincere, but it’s very clear that he isn’t certain how to ask for forgiveness for his transgression.

He didn’t anticipate jealousy.

Woojin looks upward toward the ceiling graced by a crystal chandelier and intricate crown molding, but it seems to offer no better way to tell Seungmin the complex emotions that he’s feeling. “No, but—” The music and the chatter filters in through his ears, and rattles around in his skull until he feels achy and crazy. “Can we get out of here for a minute?” Single arched brow, and the dangerous curve of his smile suggest something that Seungmin wants very badly.

“Alright.” In this moment, Seungmin’s miserly ways have paid off. No visits to the principle’s office. No detention or demerits. He can’t even remember being grounded at home. Saving all of his rebellion and recklessness for this very moment, Seungmin looks forward to carefully removing the halo that Woojin wears and placing it neatly upon his folded suit jacket next to his own. “Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

 

Seungmin has absolutely no idea what he’s doing.

Alright.

 That’s not true. He has a fraction of an idea of what he’s doing. With shaky hands, he wipes the sweat from his palms onto his slacks and takes Woojin by the hand.

He’s only been here a handful of times, but it’s difficult to miss the ostentatious, spiraling staircase in the foyer leading upstairs. “You shouldn’t be jealous. We’re best friends.”

Seungmin adds quickly, “you know that.” Up one set of stairs and then another. The sound of people chattering, glasses clinking, and the string quartet, all become fainter and fainter. Then, the sound of the simple door lock being clicked shut is deafening.

Seungmin turns around only to find that he’s led them into a bland, albeit stylishly furnished guest bedroom. The sight of the pristine bed made up in the center of the room reminds him of all the things he’s wanted to do with Woojin. The scalding hot flush in his own cheeks reminds him that they’ve never been alone long enough to do any of them, and he has no idea really _how_ to do much of any of it. He’s played himself much like the way that first year vocalists approach the piano bench for the first time. That is to say passionately, and without much finesse.

So, when he can’t think of anything else to say, and Woojin won’t say anything, he simply grabs Woojin’s medallion patterned tie, pulls him close, and kisses him hard and demanding.

For perhaps the very first time, Seungmin does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. Woojin’s hands fly to his hips first, and then wrap around to grab the firm muscle of his ass. Woojin pulls him closer, and Seungmin sighs high pitched and needy into Woojin’s mouth. Seungmin would be enveloped by the stifling blanket of embarrassment because of the sounds that he’s making if it didn’t feel _so good._

“Seungmin,” Woojin’s voice is throaty and desperate, but they’ve barely just begun. All the grit from a life that Seungmin isn’t allowed to know about, but undoubtedly sees in Woojin, bubbles on the surface of his voice, raw and unhidden. “I’m not mad, but everyone sees me wearing this ring. It’s like they know I’m with you.” The statement hangs in the air thickly between them. The words never come. Woojin’s expression looks tired, like it takes more It takes more energy to be jealous than he’d ever thought possible. So, his expression softens.

Seungmin, not knowing what he means, and Woojin, uncertain of how to grasp the slippery eel of unarticulated emotion that swims in his gut, doesn’t know how to explain.

So, Woojin settles for the next best thing on Seungmin’s behalf. Cupping Seungmin’s face between his hands, he draws him in for another a kiss that tastes like champagne and feels just as effervescent. Quick, flighty presses of tongue against tongue, and then they pull away again. “I don’t have a ring to give you. I don’t have anything that can say same for you.”

Seungmin looks to the made-up bed, and then to Woojin, back to the bed, and then to the glinting ring on Woojin’s finger. Every abstract and intangible fantasy that Seungmin has ever had is made tangible. The big sparkling ring that his father gave him woven into Seungmin’s hair. Woojin’s hand wrapped around his cock, large estate ring bobbing around him.

Seungmin breaks away from Woojin’s touch to loosen his own tie, tug it over his ears, and discard it to the floor. Buttons hastily are undone and he tugs the collar of his shirt away. “There’s something you could do.” Head cocked, neck bared, Seungmin offers himself to Woojin.

The words built up so confident and so sexy in Seungmin’s mind are wiped away and replaced by awkward stuttering, which absolutely sucks. From the way that Woojin kisses to the way that Woojin holds him, he can tell that Woojin is much more experienced. “To show everyone.”

Yeah. He’s asking his boyfriend for a goddamn hickey.

Childish, sloppy, tactless, it just feels correct.

Woojin laughs low and dark, and for a moment Seungmin thinks that Woojin thinks that it’s stupid. Then, fingertips slide down Seungmin’s sides, and thread through the loops on his belt. When their lips smack together closing one kiss, it’s impossible to not begin a new one right away. Burning with urgency from both ends, it’s like they both realize that it’s now or never.

Alone.

Alone alone.

Not watching a movie with Woojin’s hands down Seumgin’s shirt until Chan came back into their room. Alone. Not in Seungmin’s room with Jisung snoring loud enough to _almost_ kill the mood.

Woojin latches onto his neck, grazes the skin of his neck with his teeth, soothes it over with his lips, and applies pressure. Coaxes his skin from a tingle, to a sting, to a low pulsing ache. Pulling off with a pop, Woojin laughs into the abused skin.

“You think it’s stupid.”

“I think it might be some kind of first year thing. Left over from high school—oh.” Another laugh.

“Hey,” Seungmin kisses him again catching Woojin’s lower lip between his teeth. He applies pressure until Woojin’s gasping and they’re kissing again wide mouthed and sloppy.

When Seungmin finally looks at Woojin again, he sees something caught between devilish and mirth-some in his boyfriend’s face. The best of intentions are wrapped in the most sinister of execution. Woojin toys with the lapels of his jacket. “You didn’t let me finish. It’s sweet, and--” No longer satisfied with his tie, Woojin jams his hands down the waistband of his pants, untucking his shirt. “It looks nice on you.” Woojin presses into the bruise with the pad of his thumb. It’s the exact same thing that Seungmin would do if the situations were reversed, but somehow Woojin makes it sexy-electric where he’d make it clumsy and juvenile.

“Hey you think?” Woojin continues to speak in the same kind of liquid smooth voice that Seungmin only wishes he could manage. Fingers hook into his beltloops. Step back.  “Since you’re already a little undressed?”

As Woojin continues to tease Seungmin, is words burn the sacred, inner most place of his forearm like this were a playground prank, a snakebite gone too far. Seungmin can definitely speak this kind of language.

“Ah man--If this was what it took to get you alone,” Seungmin deadpans with a smile.

“Seungmin,” Step back. Woojin whispers before slotting his mouth over Seungmin’s once more and kissing him again. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re...”  Step back. “Petulant,” Step back, and the buckle of his belt is being undone.

Knees hit the bed, and Seungmin suddenly feels the way that he was supposed to feel a month or so ago in the practice room during their audition. Powerlessness and fear. But intertwined between those long tendrils that surround his belly are feelings of infatuation and lust.

A gentle hand pushes Seungmin down too easily. “Bratish?”

Clench-gasp Seungmin desperately tries to find an answer, but falls short once again.

“I’m just going to give you what you want.” Woojin pauses for a moment. Their eyes lock, as if Woojin asks for permission for what Seungmin has already demanded time and time and time again. “Cause I want it too Seungmin.”

Their lips meet again, furiously, violently. Seungmin reaches for Woojin’s belt in a desperate attempt to get him undressed too, but it’s fruitless because all of his fantasies unfold before his eyes.

The estate ring, shining and proud, rests on the black fabric shrouding Seungmin’s knee. Woojin kneels on the floor between his legs.

“Oh my god.”

“It’s just sucking cock Seungmin.”

Cock pulled free from his boxer briefs through Woojin and Seungmin’s combined yet disjointed efforts, cold air hits the tip, and Seungmin feels frighteningly, violently, alive.

“It’s a standard class at conservatory. Like, my year they taught it after theory.” Woojin holds him firmly, unashamedly in the palm of his hand. The estate ring is wrapped around the base of Seungmin’s cock. “Or is the golden first year skipping class?”

“You think I’m petulant.” When will it spill out of his mouth, a confession far more vulnerable than “I like you,” or “I love you,” that between the moments of tenderness and passion they argue, even in his fantasies?  

“Hm,” Woojin says it in a half-laugh, half-hum as he takes Seungmin’s cock into his mouth without preamble.

“God,” a strangled gasp is choked from the back of Seungmin’s throat.

Woojin takes just enough of the head of Seungmin’s cock into his mouth to get him wet and tempt him with the promise of more, but never enough to envelop him completely.

It makes Seungmin feel greedy.

Woojin’s lips, usually pink and bright, are the same shade of dry merlot served downstairs, and they look so good stretched around his cock. Seungmin laces his fingers into Woojin’s hair tight, and then backs off right away.

Woojin’s look of displeasure makes Seungmin grip his boyfriend’s hair a little bit looser, rest his hand on the nape of his neck, a little more gentler. “Fuck—” Soft flicks of Woojin’s tongue across the ridge, over the slit, and across the head. “Woojin.”

The tips of Woojin’s fingers dig into his thighs, and Seungmin has to wonder if he’ll wear more bruises here too. His skin has always been quick to mar. In the summer, sunkissed skin hides sallow yellow patches of discoloration, and in the winter dark rusty-rose marks were hidden underneath oversized sweaters.

Each swipe of Woojin’s tongue pulls his body tighter, and tighter. Each flick of Woojin’s wrist frays him, thinner, and thinner. Seungmin knows he’s on the edge, and any second now, Woojin’s going to cut that tight frayed string and set him free.

Eventually.

Seungmin’s spent years in boarding schools, and summer camps, and his room at home that doesn’t have a door lock. His goal has always been to get off as quickly as possible. Woojin’s mouth feels so different. Soft, where his own hand often bordered on abrasive. Woojin touches him like he knows all about boarding school, and summer camp, and feels hell bent on smoothing it all away. Every time that Seungmin feels like Woojin’s brought him to the edge by lavishing attention on the tip of his cock and stroking him in time, he’ll pull back. Trace the underside of Seungmin’s cock with his tongue, touch the soft skin of his sac. Over and over and over again.

Woojin looks up at Seungmin, as if a spell far more powerful than jealousy and champagne were cast upon him. Plush pink band of Woojin’s mouth pulled tight, tongue ember hot and softer than silk bring Seungmin’s absolute demise. Heavy eyelids make multiple attempts at fluttering open, once, twice, and then. Long curtain eyelashes part and all Seungmin can see is the rosy look of fondness in Woojin’s eyes, and the rose-colored tint on his cheeks. Woojin moans around him makes it sound like simply giving him this was enough. Proves that he’s wanted this just as much.

That’s all it takes. Before he can warn Woojin, he’s spilling into his mouth. Woojin, with all of his unspoken, but apparent experience, swallows him down immediately. Woojin’s teasing laughter is simultaneously dark and mirthful. “Everyone says you’re such a sweet boy but---.”  The only proof that it happened is the way that Woojin’s raspberry colored tongue slips out between his teeth in mock disgust. “You taste kinda bitter.”

* * *

 

“Shut up. That was awesome. Then Seungmin pouts, “wanna do you now.”

Seungmin sounds drunk, although Woojin severely doubts that he’s had a sip of booze tonight. High off the buzz of getting off with someone, Seungmin barely has the sense to tuck his own cock back into his underwear before he’s hauling Woojin upward and onto the bed.

_Clink-pop_ belt undone, _rustle-rustle_ pants pushed down, Seungmin takes too much of his cock into his mouth at once, and gags when the tip of Woojin’s cock hits the back of his throat. “Easy.” But it’s so hard to not push his mouth back in between Seungmin’s lips right away.

Seungmin locks gazes with him, and absolutely does not let go. Looking for approval, looking to capture every tremble of his lips and sigh that escapes from between. The movements of Seungmin’s mouth are incohesive. He’ll bob on Woojin’s cock for a few shallow strokes, and then lavish attention on the head. When spit pools in the corners of Seungmin’s mouth, drips down Woojin’s cock until he’s uncomfortably damp, Seungmin will remember that there’s more, and then he’ll stroke Woojin’s cock.

That kind of thing that shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but Woojin takes it all in with rapt fascination. With one hand, Woojin buries his fingers into thick black hair. Glints of sapphire peak out from the strands proudly. With the other hand, Woojin grips his own cock by the base, and rocks slowly in time with the constant _slurp-sigh_ sounds that Seungmin makes. Each swipe of his tongue feels like flames lapping higher, and higher, ready to immolate. “Seungmin—” Pressure coils at the base of his spine and fans outward, enveloping his body completely. “Gonna,” Seungmin probably, greedily, wants to swallow. Woojin isn’t so certain that he can handle it. Pulling away, but not quite fast enough, Woojin cums in short, powerful bursts across Seungmins tongue, lips, and chin.

 Woojin would expect Seungmin to be upset, but instead of pouting, or feigning anger, Seugmin simply extracts a crimson handkerchief made of silk from his pocket, wipes off his face, and crumples it back into his pocket as if it were a simple tissue. He supposes there’s a lot that he doesn’t yet know about his boyfriend.

“That was amazing.”

And Woojin’s apt to agree. “Yeah.”

* * *

 

No after glow. No cuddling. Those are for later.  Without another word exchanged between them, Woojin and Seungmin help put one another back together. Shirts tucked and buckles redone. Seungmin covers the unsightly red bruise on the crook of his neck with his slightly crumpled white shirt. But just knowing that it’s there, touching it over the cloth, makes Woojin’s chest swell with pride.

“Did I get it all?”

“Yeah.” Woojin takes Seungmin’s tie between his fingers, unties it completely, and redoes it better than it was tied the first time. Seungmin is nearly perfect, and asymmetrical silk knots may be the only thing that prevents him from being completely perfect.  “What about me?”

“You look good. Like always.” Seungmin wets his fingers with the tip of his tongue and smooths down fly away hairs at the crown of Woojin’s hair. “Better now.”

For someone who was so eager to suck cock seconds ago, Seungmin becomes skittish now at the top of the steps. “Should we go back down together? Or separate? What do we do if people ask us where we’ve been?”

“What, you’re not gonna show off your trophy?” Woojin pinches the juncture of Seungin’s shoulder, earning him a slap on the ass that is both playful and angry. “Listen,” Woojin peers around the corner and down the stairs to the landing. For now, the coast is clear. Offering his arm to Seungmin, Woojin becomes a perfect gentleman, and the exact opposite of kind of person who sucks off his boyfriend at his best friend’s birthday party. “We’ll go back together.”

They rejoin the party seamlessly…Well, more or less. “This is the first time tonight you haven’t looked like you wanted to jump out of the nearest window,” Chan notes.

Jeongin without a hint of mockery in his voice chirps at Seungmin, “hyung, your tie looks so much better now. Did Woojin redo it for you?” Little innocuous things that make them both blush red and fake cough into cloth napkins.

The chime of a dainty silver spoon struck against crystal glass cuts through the idle chatter of the room. Strange, how such a fine fragile sound would carry more terror than the sound of a gunshot.

The whole room goes silent. Minho stands between his parents and slices a large wedge from a pristine layer cake. Minho’s hand shakes. So much so that his clenched fist plows through a whole row of whorled frosting. Blinding white light from flashbulbs pop all around capturing the moment.

“If we can get a slice Minho hasn’t touched, we should get some” Seungmin suggests.

With the chime notes of stemware against flatware, Woojin and Seungmin’s lives change forever.

Seungmin holds onto his arm the entire time as they traverse the length of the room. Whatever wasn’t clear about them before is brazen and apparent now.

“Woojin?  Ginger spice or vanilla bean?” Seungmin is so agreeable now; his fingers linger on the rim of a china plate with spiced ginger cake.

From his peripheral vision, a man’s hand reaches over to tap Seungmin on the shoulder. For a moment, Woojin cannot even turn to look at the man’s face. All that he can see upon the ring finger of his right hand is a large gold band with a glowing ember garnet in the center. The ostentatious and familiar nature of the ring takes his breath away.

In slow motion, Seungmin turns around on his heel. The contact between Woojin and Seungmin is broken, and the chilling air of irrevocability cuddles up beside him. Seungmin’s face is drawn into a firm, tight line for a fraction of a second. It happens so fast that Woojin would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been so enamored with Seungmin. Then, equally as quickly, Seungmin pulls his face into a wide grin. “What are you doing here?”

“We just got in town this afternoon. We knew you’d be here tonight. Your mother and I wanted to surprise you.”

It’s easy to discern from the conversation, and the familiarity that this man is Seungmin’s father. Woojin’s stomach feels heavy and sour. The air is sucked from the room, and it reminds Woojin of the one time he tried to donate blood. Nauseous and faint at the same time.

“Well it is a surprise.” Seungmin sounds hurt, but he doesn’t even know.

Woojin looks into Seungmin’s father’s eyes and sees familiar, dark almond shaped eyes that tremble with fear. Woojin can only assume that he looks the very same way, wide eyed, afraid, and burdened by the sudden weight of an undesired secret. Broad nose, thick black eyebrows, all things that Woojin would miss if he didn’t look at these same features every single day.

Woojin looks into the eyes of a man that he’s seen in crumpled photos and in the dep recesses of his memories.

Idle chatter that Woojin cannot decipher happens around him. Seungmin’s father speaks, but Woojin feels like he’s had his head dunked underneath the water.

“Let me introduce you,” hand splayed wide across the small of Woojin’s back, Seungmin beams. “Dad, this is my boyfriend Woojin.”

Absent as he may have been from Woojin’s life, he knows. The man before him, is _his own_ father.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“What is wrong with you?” For a while, it’s easy enough to bury the secret like spilled blood covered by fresh fallen snow. The demands of the semester surround them from all sides. Classes, practice, auditions for the Christmas musical and the autumn recital performance take priority above everything else. Woojin avoids the issue for what feels like centuries, but isn’t more than days. In these days, the secret winds around, in-between, and crushes them back together into one painfully human mass of flesh, bone, and throbbing, puss-filled secrecy. “If you want to break up, don’t be a coward. Just do it.”

Woojin could do that. End it now where it all came together in front of the only three things that really matter: God, the Han River, and Seungmin.

But Woojin’s heart aches in a way that he’s never known. It were as if Seungmin grabbed him up by the lapels and kissed him tenderly while a stranger, well known to Seungmin, and unknown to Woojin, tore out their hearts from behind.  Tugged between his ribs and his vertebrae, the organ shredded and fragile, Woojin still loves Seungmin with every labored pulse of his heart.

“Seungmin,” Woojin can see his breath scatter the two simple syllables across the air in mist. The riverfront is empty and quiet tonight, and so even his soft words bounce down the promenade. “It’s not like that.”

“How could it not be “like that?” Woojin?” Damp-blink-damp, over and over again until the tears that well in Seungmin’s eyes trickle downward in bold ugly streaks across his face. It is undeniable that Woojin caused this.  “You’ve barely spoken to me. I thought maybe this is how you handled performance stress, but you left right after curtain.”

Seumgmin hides a sob in his silver cufflinks, and with it the shift, unavoidable, that their father caused this.

Woojin has been out here for so long that his body has become numb from the cold. For Seungmin however, the red rush of warmth from the train hasn’t quite left his cheeks, nor has the frosty gale chapped his nose. Shoulders drawn up close, hands tucked into his pockets, he seems helpless and small.

It’s terrifying.

Woojin stands slowly, breaking the ice that’s settled into his joints. From the precious place between his overcoat and his dress shirt, he extracts a meek half dozen red roses bruised by the jostle-kisses of movement, travel, and distress. “I got these for you. To congratulate you on your performance.”

Seungmin takes the plastic wrap between his fingers and looks upon the offering through puffy eyelids that must sting from crying. “But you weren’t actually going to give them to me.”

“I was. I had it all planned out. Give you the flowers, and kiss you, and tell you that you were amazing.” Woojin draws nearer, his gut reaction to comfort Seungmin even though he’s caused the pain, will cause much more pain.

“But you didn’t.” Seungmin pushes him away, but  Woojin holds onto him so firmly that the supple flesh of his arms would surely bruise if Seungmin wasn’t dressed in layer atop layer of thick winter clothing.

The bouquet is dropped onto the concrete walkway and explodes on impact. Petals on the pavement and petals in the air.

“Seungmin, your parents made it backstage so quickly. I couldn’t.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because,” Woojin tears himself away for a moment. Woojin grabs for his wallet and extracts a crumpled, time creased photo. He’s had it for years now. Mother packed it into a small box of his things. A name and now faded phone number is etched onto the back in ballpoint pen. Just in case he ever wanted to find him.

Woojin thrusts the photo into Seungmin’s hands. His eyes take in the creased photo. Their father is dressed in a suit, and Woojin’s mother, a pale pink dress. In the photo, she’s younger than Woojin is now. The flash bulb washes out her skin, and the dark wood of a table lined with drinks and plates of food covers the foreground of the photo.

Anger is quickly flushed out of Seungmin’s expression and replaced by confusion. The line in his forehead softens, his clenched jaw grows slack. “Woojin, I don’t understand. Why do you have a photo of my father?”

“My father wasn’t around growing up. My mom said I could find him in Seoul. I didn’t want to, but I guess I found him anyway.”

It becomes silent between them for a long time. The wind picks up and howls their frustrations and their sorrow. Petals from the discarded bouquet whip upward, fly through the air, and are lost in the river. 

When Seungmin finally speaks, he speaks for Woojin too. All the things that he has been unable to say, Seungmin says them for him. First, a simple, “no.” Then, burgeoning tears well up in the corner of Seungmin’s eyes and then streak down his face. Then he says the obvious and the most painful, “but, I’m in love with you Woojin.”

Pressure just behind his eyes is the only warning that he gets, and then his eyelashes become matted and sticky. The taste of teardrops linger just behind his nose, and damn the man who makes such a beautiful voice sound so pitiful and so small.

Woojin frames Seungmin’s face with his glove covered hands and leans in for one damning kiss that burns, but in no way feels final. His senses are muted from crying and the cold. He cannot taste Seungmin, cannot smell the scent of drycleaner’s chemicals on his winter coat, or the aroma of soap and cologne on his skin. Can barely feel the pressure of Seungmin against him because he’s so numb from the cold.

It absolutely cannot end this way.

They kiss as if they want it to last for forever. Stuffy noses and thick tongues, they are forced to come up for air far too soon. Somewhere, lingering between pride and disgust is the beautiful and horrific secret that Seungmin kisses him back without hesitation.

“I love you too Seungmin.”

* * *

 

Seungmin should just go. An ominous winter’s chill pours in from an open window down the hallway and threatens to blow him down the corridor and into the stairwell. He’d be better off surrendering to it.

What is there left to say, and why does he not know the words, but want so badly to say them? Seungmin could say that he tried. He tried letting things go back to the way things were before, but normal just won’t come. When he and Woojin warm up before vocal class, it’s hollow and empty. When Woojin gets the lead in the Christmas show, Seungmin doesn’t feel the spark of rivalry and the desire to do better. In fact, he feels absolutely nothing at all.

Seungmin could say that he’s lonely. Although his toes may hang off the edge of his bunk if he’s not careful, the narrow mattress feels so empty now.

Seungmin could say that he’s good at keeping secrets. His best friend in middle school told him that he stole an extra dessert every day at lunch time, just for fun, and he’s never told a single soul.

But as it stands, he says absolutely nothing at all. He raises his curled fist to the hardwood door, but never can bring himself knock.

 The metal against metal sound of the deadbolt unlocking makes him jump, but his feet are bolted into place. Seungmin though he knew fear, but in that moment every shred of panic he’s ever known is multiplied ten, no a hundred fold.

But it’s Chan that emerges from the other side. “Oh, hi Seungmin.”

“Hey.” In this moment, even though he thinks of Chan as a friend, he does not know what to say.

“Woojin went home for Christmas already.”

“Already?” Somehow, Woojin being far away is far more frightening than him being nearby while Seungmin is unable to speak.

“Yeah. The show is done, and his finals schedule was pretty light.”

“Do you know where his mom lives?” There’s nothing, absolutely nothing that can be said over the phone or over text. He’s tried, opening the messaging app and typing and deleting words over and over and over again. His heart aches, and only action will soothe him.

“Jeonju I think?”

“Yeah but like, where?”

“You would have a better chance of knowing Seungmin. He’s a really private person.” Chan looks to the floor, furrows his brow, and then looks back up at Seungmin, as if he’s decided something. “I wish I could help you though. I don’t know what happened, but I think you’re good for each other.”

* * *

 

Seungmin has a whole train ride to rehearse in his mind what he is and is not going to say. He could spit in anger all of the foul little details that he knows. He could go to his mother first. The possibility lingered in his mind since that night upon the river, if she knew, or how much she knew, and if she cared. He could simply, and maturely ask his father if he knew where Woojin’s mother lived in Jeonju. There’s a small part of him that wishes he had asked Woojin to borrow the photo, because he loves the idea of throwing it down onto his hardwood desk. The desired emotion and level of histrionics change with each chug-sway of the train, so by the time he actually does reach the high rise where his father’s office is, he feels absolutely exhausted.

Seungmin blows past the doorman made of brass buttons in the lobby and lets himself into a sterile elevator up to the sterile office on the thirty-second floor. The receptionist knows him only as his fathers’ son, and so even though he’s in a meeting until four-thirty, she lets Seungmin into his office.

A sleek modern wall clock ticks down the seconds, and even though it doesn’t make a sound, each jerking motion of the second hand fills him with dread. Each passing second threatens his shaken confidence. Restless, he moves from the shining leather sofa to the small bar made of dark stained wood. His hands shake as he pours honey colored whiskey from a decanter and raises the liquid to his mouth.

The astringent taste of whiskey does nothing to calm his nerves, only cranks the heat that thrives in his cheeks even hotter. He slams the tumbler back down onto the bar with a crash. Liquid from the broken tumbler splashes onto his clothes and his skin.

Seungmin catches sight of himself in the mirror adjacent to the bar. Although his reflection is splattered with whiskey, he sees more than enough. Crisp shirt and bright yellow and lapis patterned bow tie. He looks like he belongs here with his father. He doesn’t recognize himself anymore, and it disgusts him.

Loosen the tie, pop off his cufflinks, Seungmin becomes all of the things that his mother and father never allowed him to be: messy, disobedient, angry.

With a single fluid motion, he rakes the glass decanters on the bar to the floor. The sound of glass crashing against hardwood is deafening, but only lasts a fraction of a second before it becomes maddeningly quiet in the office again. So he moves onto the nearby bookshelf and empties the filing cabinet before grabbing onto the corner of the large mahogany desk in exhaustion.

When his father finally enters the room, Seungmin’s seated in his father’s executive chair. Feet propped up on the desk, he tramples an expensive leather desk mat with the soles of his loafers. All of the rancor and all of the whiskey stoked confidence is _almost_ drained from his body. Seungmin bolts upright and places his feet flat upon the floor.

After all, he’s done something very wrong.

But a tiny, indignant spark still burns in his gut.

“Seungmin,” and it’s like he knows. They haven’t really spoken since the night of the autumn recital. Quick phone calls when his mother passed the phone, but nothing more. “What a surprise.” Then, simply, “what’s the occasion?”

Seungmin would like to believe that where his own cheeks burn with the flush of alcohol, his father’s burn hotter with the flush of shame. He _knows_. “Does mom know?”

But…That’s assuming too much. Shame would mean acknowledging wrongdoing. With his mother, his associates, with Seungmin himself, his father is never wrong.

“Seungmin, someday, when you’re older you’ll understand. When a man travels, he cannot take home every bauble and sweet smiling souvenir that he sees.”

“Souvenir?” The acidic taste of bile rises to his throat. Clouded by angry red that pulses at his temples, Seungmin finally walks out from behind the desk. His fists are clenched so tight that the tips of his fingernails bite into his skin. The only way to relieve the pressure and the sting is to grab up a discarded paperweight and send flying into the wall. Glass shards shatter and shake like sharp rain.

“Seungmin this is no time for petulance.” Sickly beads of sweat gather at his father’s temple. Good. Let him burn.

“You don’t understand,” Seungmin growls through aching, clenched tight teeth. “What made him different from me? What made me worth raising and not him?” Once the words start coming out they just don’t stop. “I fell in love with my own brother because of you.”

“Seungmin, this is an unfortunate situation. However—”

“Stop talking.”

“My sins may be great, but you’re no longer blameless.”

 Seungmin isn’t exactly sure what happens. Disjointed, flashbulb memories flicker in his mind’s eye, but all he knows is that in one distance he stands before his father, and the next his father is reeling backwards. Seungmin won’t let him fall, and hauls him upward by the lapels of his jacket.  “You’re right. I should just forget all about this. Break up with him. Start dating my classmate, cute first year soprano from Busan. But then what happens when I find out she’s my goddamn sister?”

His father’s nose is bleeding. Crimson white spots _splatter-drip_ onto his crisp white dress shirt.

Seungmin feels shame about what happened, but Seungmin is finished. “I need to find him. Do you know where he lives?”

His father flinches. Seungmin isn’t certain if it’s because he fears another strike or because Seungmin’s request is far more painful. “I have an old address. It could have changed.”

“I’m going to Jeonju. I’m going to keep your secret because you’re going to keep mine. Understand?”

* * *

 

“Woojin,” Mother’s voice is so soft, he’d miss the sound if he hadn’t been trained for years to listen for her. “You don’t need to do that.”

Woojin stands on a chair in the kitchenette, screwing a replacement lightbulb into the fixture.

The apartment is different from the cramped space that he grew up in. The kitchen isn’t shared with two or three other old pensioners, and he has his own bedroom now. It’s different now, but in other ways things have stayed the same. The tips of Woojin’s toes feel numb in the cold. He always feels like he’s on the cusp of doing something wrong.

“I don’t mind Mama. Really.” Unless… “Will Yongjo mind?” his mother remarried a few years ago after Woojin left for school. He cannot say that he particularly likes this stepfather, but he cannot say that he dislikes him either. All that Woojin knows is that his mother has married worse.  When he’s home, Yongjo works for many hours. Then, he drinks for many hours. It means that Woojin may see him once or twice the entire week he’s home for Christmas.

“No, I don’t think so.”

Finished with the light, Woojin wipes away cobwebs with the tips of his fingers, and hops down off of the chair.

“Then I don’t mind.”

Woojin has always known that his mother was quite young. People said so in hushed tones when she walked him to school on the very first day. People said so when she scraped together 500 won coins to take him to the arcade for his birthday. The attendants would always refer to her as his older sister when he won her multicolored prizes from UFO catchers. When he got older? They’d go out to lunch, bring one bill, and automatically give it to Woojin.

Her brow isn’t worried the way that mothers’ brows usually are. Her face flushes red with the same ruddy tint that his own face does on Christmas mornings, and on walks in the park. She wears a lilac tulip shaped barrette in her hair. She likes to eat spice cake instead of real food for dinner. He’s always known his mother was quite young, but now? Now it settles into his gut and makes him feel sick to his stomach.

“Let me.” Woojin reaches for the bundle of pastel pink in his mother’s arms. Eunbi, his little sister, is almost a year old. She’s also another reminder of how young his mother really is. “Hi Eunbi,” his voice, barely a whisper, still sounds thunderous in comparison to that of his mother’s.

The baby smells of powder and lotion. Her fat round cheeks blot out any other facial features.

“Do you think it will matter?” Woojin smooths the baby’s pale pink jumper that was rucked upwards when mother passed her to him. He wouldn’t want her to feel the cold. Ever. Woojin dotes upon the baby in all of the ways that adults are supposed to. He wriggles his eyebrows, and make his eyes wide enough to match his smile.

He has no idea if he’s doing it correctly or not.

“That we won’t be close because of our age,” Woojin continues.  

As if the infant agrees with him, her soft coos morph into staccato noises of dissatisfaction.

It doesn’t bother Woojin so much. Soft brush of the pad of his thumb across her cheek, he soothes her the way he’d sooth any other human. With his voice. “How beautiful if nothing more, than to wait at Eunbi’s door.” When she smiles, he smiles.

“What’s happened to you Woojin? You’re different now.”

“Maybe Seoul’s finally changed me. Everyone always said it would.”

“No, not like those wrinkled old women would say. I remember that.” Mother laughs, and it sounds like the most timid ringing of bells. “Like you’ve grown up. You’re sadder now. Like a grown up.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you really sad a day in my life.”

“I never grew up,” and she says it like Woojin’s supposed to be finding this out for the very first time. “You’re sad like a man I guess. Can’t stop showing it off, but can’t talk about it either.”

“I met somebody this semester, Mom.” There’s a sick part of his mind that still hopes that things will be different, so the truth is obscured. “He’s smart, and funny, and really, really talented. It’s not working out.”

“I’m sorry.” His mother rubs her hand up and down his forearm.

Trapped between cracked tiles, dirty grout, and polyurethane curtains, time stands still for Woojin. Mother reminds him that there are millions of people in Seoul. That it’s normal, and that he’ll grow. Then, she excuses herself to get ready for tonight. Woojin agreed to attend evening mass with her at the Cathedral.

Alone in the main room of the apartment, he sinks into one of the two armchairs that feel too large for such a small space. Alone with Eunbi, whose never had the opportunity to make a mistake, he confesses. “I have younger brother Enubi. You’re not related, but you can be his sister too. I don’t know if you’ll ever get to meet him but, he’d really, really like you.”

* * *

 

Woojin isn’t struck down by hellfire as soon as he walks into the cathedral, and he takes it as a good sign. Dipping the tips of his fingers into the marble font, Woojin fully expects his sin to turn the water into acid, but what he extracts from the font is far more flesh than it is bone.

Instead, he goes through the automatic motions of the sign of the cross.

Strange. For the very longest time, he never quite liked being here. The cathedral was drafty and cold. The nuns always looked at him like they knew something that he didn’t. Woojin supposes that they did. The parishioners doted upon him in ways that his mother and grandmother did not. Could not. Crystal rosaries at first communion, embossed cards full of bills that he absolutely had to give to his mother. They acted like they knew him just because they heard his voice. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Now? For the very first time Woojin feels at peace under the vaulted ceilings and chandeliers. Something bigger and better than him pours in through the stained-glass windows and takes the form of the light of the full moon.

In this moment, Woojin isn’t worried about where Seungmin is, or how badly he’s hurting. There’s no question in his mind, if they’ll end up together, or they’ll have to awkwardly dance around one another for Woojin’s very last semester. Somehow, everything will be fine.

Although it’s just him and mom, the dark hardwood pew creaks and bows underneath their weight. It feels so good when he pulls down the rail and kneels upon the downtrodden padding. Fold his hands, bow his head, Woojin closes his eyes to the sight advent purple and prays.

Before he can even mutter a solemn “amen,” Woojin feels the pew bend beneath the weight of another person.

Woojin opens his eyes to mussed hair, dirtied shirt, and exhausted watery eyes. Seungmin is a miracle before him.

* * *

 

Woojin may be in his twenties, but in this moment, he feels like he’s five years old again. An over starched shirt scratches against his skin, his tie presses against his throat, and the overwhelming urge to get out of here and be anywhere but the church is strong. Just like when he was five years old, he can feel the weight of his mother’s gaze upon him holding him firmly in place.

But this time, Seungmin’s gaze paralyzes him too.

 “Are you alright?” Woojin’s had a lifetime of long masses to perfect the low whisper that he shoots into Seungmin’s ear during hymn. “You have blood on your shirt. You smell like booze.”

All that Woojin wants is to take him by the hand and be anywhere but here. Together.

“It’s not my blood. It’s bourbon, and,” with less experience, Seungmin’s voice bounces outside the perimeter of the low and solemn hymn. “I’ve had a really bad day.” Shaking fingers thumb through the pages of a hymnal booklet that Woojin has memorized from cover to cover.

So Woojin takes hymnal book from Seungmin, turns to the appropriate page, and holds it in his right hand against the pew in front of them so that Seungmin can see. With his left hand, Woojin covers Seungmin’s hand which rests on the pew in front of them.

The weight of the large sapphire ring that he never took off weighs Seungmin down and soothes the burned hand that set aflame a thousand bridges in Seoul.

Seungmin stops shaking immediately.

Together, they sing in muted voices that they keep folded up into their pocket squares and use in situations when they aren’t on stage. Try as they might to hide, their angelic voices do not blend in but rise up and above the mundane.

When Father Park commands the parish, “let us offer a sign of peace,” Woojin is healed completely. Their embrace is brief and Woojin’s fingers catch against the hastily creased collar of Seungmin’s jacket and brush up against his neck.

The scent of incense is strong in the air and intermingles with the scent of scotch on Seungmin’s clothes.

The tips of Seungmin’s fingers dig into the thick cloth of his own jacket, like he’s afraid Woojin will disappear. His eyes, wide and watery, hide absolutely nothing. He still wants an answer.

The petulance that Woojin has become acquainted with has melted into an enviable persistence.

“Peace Seungmin.”

* * *

 

Mom’s small hand reaches behind Woojin’s back. Gentle. Purposeful. Her impossibly small hand is dwarfed in Seungmin’s. The simple action speaks volumes, and lets them both know that she knows…

The way that Seungmin’s gaze jumps from Mother’s questioning gaze to Woojin’s silently asks what his role is supposed to be. Lover? Or brother?

Woojin, Seungmin, Mother, and Eunbi,, pressed against mother’s chest, make a family tacked together by fate, and cruelty, and genuine love. Together, they approach the altar rail and take communion. The thin wafer feels thick on Woojin’s tongue.

When mass is finished, Woojin explains “we’re going to take the later train home, Mama.” He only calls her that when he’s uncertain, vulnerable. He’s called her that a lot the past few days. “Seungmin’s going to stay the night. Maybe tomorrow night too. Maybe a little longer. But I’ll make sure Yongjo won’t be bothered.”

“Alright.” Slowly, deliberately, she fastens the rough plastic buttons on her coat paying special attention to stretch the fabric over the bump of the baby carrier strapped to her chest. “I’ll see you at home.” Her fingers are cold as they brush against Woojin’s arm, so much so that he can feel the chill through the fabric of his jacket. “It’s good to meet you Seungmin.”

* * *

 

Cloister.

The alcove they’re in is a cloister. Woojin said so. Seungmin pressed their mouths together no sooner than Woojin’s mother turned away, and then Woojin said, “not here, the cloister.” Woojin pulled him by the collar through a set of double doors and pressed their mouths together.

He’s kissing his brother in a cloister.

Seungmin had so many things that he wanted to say to Woojin. Each carefully selected word is violently shaken from his head and out either ear as he’s deafened by the sound of church bells ringing. Each word, carefully selected, is swallowed up greedily by Woojin’s lips upon his own. So, all he’s left with is a single word that didn’t even exist until Woojin spoke it into existence seconds ago. Cloister.

The low, deliberate sounds of the bell are a stark contrast to the way that they touch one another, frantic and unhinged. Seungmin holds Woojin’s face between his hands. Woojin encircles Seungmin’s waist and holds him so tight that it feels as if he’s suffocating. Hands rake down each other’s back and sides, and although the kiss is impossibly deep: neck craned, teeth clink, lips bruise, it drips of desperation and affirmation more than it does true need.

The sting of teardrops prick at his eyes, but he’s tired of crying. So, a new kiss begins before the first properly ends. Anyone could walk in at anytime, but all that matters is that Woojin is here and Woojin is kissing him back.

“I can’t believe you’re here.” Woojin’s voice is hoarse, breathless, not from kissing, not from the cold, but from incredulity.

“If you didn’t want to be with me, I’d leave you alone, but…” Another kiss, this time, slow enough that Seungmin can feel the cadence of Woojin’s body this time. Feels the way that his lips part from the slightest pressure of his tongue and responds with a sigh: deep, relieved, and filled with a desire that he absolutely refuses to constrain. When they part, Woojin kisses Seungmin again quickly on the corner of his mouth. Like a signature, or a calling card, just to remind Seungmin that he’s not dreaming. It gives Seungmin the strength to keep talking, and tell Woojin how he truly feels. “But I think you want to be with me. So why should we suffer for someone else’s mistakes?”

“You’re right.”

“I’m what?” Seungmin can’t bear to be angry, or sad, so he does what comes naturally to him. Goading his older brother. “Say it again.”

“You’re right Seungmin.” Woojin takes a threadbare cotton handkerchief from his pocket. Carrying them was undoubtedly something he started doing after they started dating.  Woojin dips the cloth square into the holy water font, and it makes Seungmin’s stomach drop. Somehow, it seems worse than mauling one another in a church.  

“I wanted the chance to let you make your own decision.”

“Well, I made it.”

 “Are you alright?”

The sensation of cool water against Seungmin’s skin makes him jump at the touch. Woojin holds his hand steady in his own and wipes dried blood from the cut on his hand.

Seungmin looks up at the cross upon the wall, draped with a purple advent stole. He hasn’t set foot inside a church in years, but certainly this must be a miracle.

“I punched our dad Woojin. You said I was right about something. And...I got you back. I feel amazing.”

* * *

 

Woojin had plenty of time to imagine it. Sometimes he imagines it in his own room at the conservatory dorm. Chan and Changbin would be off at some club with an expensive cover charge to see an artist from somewhere like New York or Los Angeles. Woojiin would pull down all the blankets that he owned and make a giant nest upon the floor so that the room next door wouldn’t hear the bunk bed creak. He’d leave the door unlocked, and Seungmin would come inside hair damp and mussed from the shower. They’d go really slow. Woojin would use his tongue, and make sure that it wouldn’t hurt at all.

Sometimes, in a Seungmin’s room at home. He’s never set eyes upon this room of course, but he imagines it to be the opposite of the room that Seungmin shares with Jisung at the dormitory. Immaculate, and filled with things that suggested, but did not explicitly make clear that an eighteen-year-old boy lived there.  Woojin would pull back the thick down comforter stretched across a large bed, so as to not spill any lube onto it. Because Seungmin is Seungmin, and anything other than ordinary, he’d buy something exotic like black currant berry or raspberry pomegranate. The sugary scent would fill the air so strongly that he could taste it when he lapped up Seungmin’s sighs.

If not there, three in the morning in the shower in the dorm, or in a low end hotel room after a very, very successful night of busking. He’s had plenty of time to imagine it, but never, never in a million or more fractured fantasies did he imagine it happening this way.

Seungmin has always been so warm that Woojin has clung to him desperate to catch a single ember or spark. He does so now. With his legs thrown over Seungmin’s it’s difficult to tell where one body begins and the other ends, or who’s really sitting in whose lap.

Too much leg, not enough bed, Woojin’s feet are tucked in the space between where the headboard and the mattress meet. Furtively, he kicks at the pillow, stuffed down into the crack between the wall and the bedframe. Seungmin’s got his leg draped half on the bed, half off, and it seems that with every stolen kiss and touch they threaten to overflow the narrow confines of the mattress completely.

Woojin’s room is cold, and the little electric space heater in the corner doesn’t work fast enough to keep them warm. So Woojin does his best to soothe over the gooseflesh upon Seungmin’s skin. Touches across his biceps, chest, and pert brown nipples that were always so sensitive to Woojin’s touch.

Seungmin was never supposed to see the nicotine yellowed popcorn ceiling, or the water stains that work their way between the wall and the wall paper, causing large bulbous tumors to sprout forth from the wall. Seungmin was never supposed to see that the duvet on his bed has been patched repatched more times than he can count.

But Woojin’s realities, conservatory and Jeonju, suddenly and violently collide here and now. Even though the only light in the room is the faint yellow glow of Woojin’s desk light, Woojin is blinded by the glow of Seungmin’s smile, and the glimmer of a ring that their father gave them as he works Seungmin’s cock in his hand.

Seungmin grips the firm muscle of his inner thigh with one hand, holding him firmly in place. Woojin grabs Seungmin protectively on his flank at the sensitive place where stomach meets rib cage. Hands on one another’s cocks, Seungmin touches Woojin with a hypnotic, _squeeze_ - _roll_ that grips him just right. Woojin focuses his attention on the head of Seungmin’s cock, caressing he head and rubbing the ridge on the underside with the pad of his thumb.

Soft whisper-moans amplify and grow into sharper, needier, and much more audible cries that rise up and over whatever subtitled documentary he threw on his laptop to drown out the sound.

“Seungmin,” Woojin pleads, but doesn’t stop touching him for a second. “Not so-ah,” but it’s difficult to listen, even to himself. Seungmin twists his wrist upward, and then Woojin’s canting his hips upward into the friction. “Be quiet.”

“Sorry.”

Seungmin bites his already kissed bruised lips until they’re an angry shade of purple-red, and Woojin has no choice other than to soothe the irritation with more kisses. When their sighs spill from the corners of their lips Woojin uses his hands, first to cover Seungmin’s mouth, and then to press his fingers inside.

Woojin has had ample time to imagine it happening, but foolishly, never like this.

Satisfied with the way that Seungmin’s lips stretch around his fingers, this becomes all that Woojin can see. Swept away in the pressure that builds at the base of his spine, it’s all that Woojin can feel. The rustling sound of skin against skin, interrupted by the staccato pop of the bedframe creaking, or an escaped moan from either of them becomes all that he can hear. The air is thick with the scent of sweat and the distinctive dry heat of electrically heated air. All that he can taste and smell. Seungmin blinds his senses, and because of this he becomes complacent.

Which is a very dangerous thing to do around his younger brother.

Seungmin pulls off of his fingers with a sticky wet _pop._

Before he can quite understand what’s going on, Seungmin’s hand is splayed across his chest and he’s being pushed down, down, down onto the mattress. Seungmin, soon on top of him, never stops touching him with long, uneven strokes.

“Seungmin,” his name is barely a whisper upon his tongue. “Seungmin—” Because he assumes that his little brother wants to do more. Woojin knows for a fact that he wants to do more. He had the sense to make sure that the large bottle of unscented lotion, that he all but bathes in the winter time when the air is dry and the cold chaps his face, was in his room. Thinks that maybe, maybe he still has a condom in his wallet, which is somewhere in the nearby discarded mountain of clothing. “Seungmin,” not _stop,_ or _don’t,_ because those words just aren’t true. Just a plea that doesn’t want to make in full because what Seungmin does to him feels so good, “I’m cl—” so a half-chocked sob is fine.

Sl-ide, stop of their sweat dampened foreheads until their kissing, and Seungmin’s still moving his hand. Woojin feels absolutely powerless in the best kind of way when he’s cumming into his brother’s hand.

“Woojin—”

The static has barely cleared from Woojin’s brain or his body. His cock still pulses from Seungmin’s touch even though he’s spilled everything onto his stomach already.

 “Woojin, I want to. Can we,” but Seungmin is still wild with need.

Woojin is acutely aware of the way that Seungmin has settled between his legs and drapes his body over top of Woojin’s own.

Seungmin makes a sound, vulnerable and choked, “go all the way?”

All he can feel is the sticky wet feeling of Seungmin’s cock pressed against his thigh, hot with need.

Woojin responds first with a kiss, slow, meticulous, yet fiery in only the way that a kiss can be given when you’ve just cum. Then, Woojin responds explicitly, “yeah.”

“You sure?” But Seungmin, hard and needy, is already rutting up against any smooth swath of skin that he can gain access to and kissing Woojin again before he can respond. It’s so easy to become entangled in Seungmin’s blind, almost reckless enthusiasm until, “I heard that it really hurts.”

“Seungmin,” Woojin reaches upward and tilts Seungmins chin so that they can kiss again for what must be the thousandth time that night. It’s still not enough. “I’m your older brother. I’ll teach you everything.”

* * *

 

It’s just like Seungmin imagined it. Once the heavy cloaks, interwoven with guilt and shame, are cast off of their backs, all that’s left is something heart stopping and beautiful. Something that is distinctly Seungmin and Woojin.

“Really?” Seungmin laughs into his collar bone, and hides his amusement with a kiss turned bite turned bruise. “That’s all you have to say?” Woojin talks like he invented sex or something.  

“What else do you want me to say?” Woojin’s voice has a playful, dangerous kind of lilt to it. It’s the kind of tone that Seungmin chases every single time without question.

“I don’t know, something…” Seungmin’s voice trails off, distracted by the silken feeling of rutting his cock into the crease of Woojin’s thigh. “Something nice. You know. “You’re my brother, and I know you love me, and I know you’d never hurt me.”’

 “So, you say it.” No additional teasing.

“Woojin, you’re my brother. I love you, and I’d never do anything to hurt you.”  

Woojin rocks upward and places a single haphazard kiss onto the tip of Seungmin’s nose. “Alright then.”

It’s just like Seungmin imagined. He fumbles for the bottle of lotion that Woojin says that they can use. His fingers shake so badly that by the time he presses against Woojin’s skin, warm and pliant, it’s Woojin that’s comforting him. It’s Woojin that makes him feel strong and capable.

He’s really good at doing that.

“Seungmin, it’s alright. Go slow and we’ll both be fine.” Woojin’s hand brushes against his own, transferring the viscous liquid from Seungmin’s fingers to Woojin’s. “I’ll show you.”

Then, Seungmin watches in rapt fascination as Woojin dips his hand between his legs and presses his fingers against his hole. Millimeter by agonizing millimeter, the tip of Woojin’s finger disappears inside of himself.

Hole stretched tight and clenching against the intruding finger, it’s the most obscene thing that Seungmin has ever seen. From his cheekbones, across his chest, to the place where soft black curls dust just below his bellybutton and lead downward to his cock, Woojin’s skin flushes red.

 “Does it feel good?”

“Um,” Woojin screws his eyes shut, and sinks his finger deeper. “It’s alright, but it’s always better if someone else does it.” Watching Woojin do it to himself makes it seem less frightening. “I know it will feel better if you do it. Your fingers are really long.”

That comment pulls Seungmin into action. Circling and pressing against the tight ring of muscle, seems impossible that his own finger will fit inside, never mind his own cock. However, Woojin’s body is deceptive. Catch at the rim, and then _fric-tion_ of his finger pressing against Woojin’s rim and his own finger. Woojin is tight, and wet, and hot, and he’s going to fuck him. “Oh my god. I’m going to put my dick there.”

“Yeah,” Woojin laughs at him, and Seungmin can feel the way the laugh pulls his whole body tight.

Woojin slides his finger out, and before his brain stops functioning completely, Seungmin remembers to slide his own finger inside.

It’s strange how he can grab Woojin up by the lapels and kiss him deeply, grab his cock and stroke him roughly, but this? Suddenly, Woojin is precious to the point of being fragile. First, he slides them in and out, and then he rubs in slow circles.

Strange soft whimper sounds spill from Woojin’s pursed lips. It’s difficult to tell if these are noises of pleasure or discomfort.

“Is this okay?”

Woojin’s skin is damp with sweat. When he opens his eyes to look at Seungmin, they’re blown wide. Whatever tension that Woojin may carry in his body is stretched taut at his rim, and at the place where he bites down on his lower lip. “Sensitive.”

Seungmin’s eyes drift back upward to Woojin’s long neglected cock. Half hard now, it leaks an endless stream of precum from the tip. “Oh—” He hasn’t even touched his cock again, but he knows the strange pins and needles feeling of having just cum and wanting to do it again immediately.

“I think I’m ready now,” husky, and needy, Woojin’s voice barely sounds like his own.

“Okay.” Seungmin slides his fingers out and wipes them upon the sheets. For a moment, all he can do is stare at Woojin with wide eyed wonder. Somehow, he’s here right now with Woojin.

Woojin tucks his legs upward close to his chest. “C’mon.”

Seungmin thought that having his fingers inside of Woojin felt tight and hot, but he was wrong. Like a large flashing sign behind his eyelids, he tries to heed Woojin’s warning to go slow or risk cumming too soon. Except, Woojin’s body is so sweet and pulls him in closer, and closer, and closer until he’s bottomed out.

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah,” Woojin pants. Woojin is calm, and Woojin has an answer for everything. To see him so _not_ like that only makes his cock twitch deeper inside of his brother.

Despite the fact that he’s dangerously close to cumming with each roll-push of his hips, and despite the fact that Woojin is already _so_ sensitive, it’s easy to find a rhythm. Woojin wraps his legs around Seungmin’s legs, and Seungmin slides in and out, in and out.

Woojin jerks his own cock in time with his thrusts. Just the thought, not even the action, of Woojin cumming a second time drives Seungmin in deeper, harder. Makes him cum with a tremble and a whimper.

He loves his brother. He loves his brother so much. Seungmin says it with his body, wrapping his hand around Woojin’s cock and haphazardly jerks him against Woojin’s own thrusts until he’s cumming onto his stomach for a second time that night. He says it with his words, “I love you so much.”

* * *

 

It only feels real when they’re finished.

“I love you,” is interrupted by the parched sticky sound of chapped lips kissing bruised lips. He can’t stop saying it.

“I love you too.” Seungmin can’t stop saying it either.

He’s sore from being jammed into a twin bed with another person. His ass stings, but truth be told, if Seungmin wanted to go again he wouldn’t say no. His lips are tender from kissing, and so are patches on his neck….He hopes he has a clean turtleneck somewhere in his chest of drawers.

It only feels real when they’re finished, and maybe it’s because they burned off all the good feelings in the fire and what’s left on their skin is charred and tangible.

“Woojin?” Seungmin raises his head from Woojin’s shoulder to look at him. “What are we going to do?”

It only feels real when they’re finished, and maybe it’s because uncertainty douses them both like a tidal wave, and it threats to stamp out the fire completely.

 “Whatever we want.” Woojin isn’t going to let that happen. “We can go to Europe and sing opera. We can go somewhere and get married. He can’t hurt us anymore Seungmin.”


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

Woojin can feel coal hot hands move underneath the blanket, but he need not open his eyes to know whose hands bring such heat and such urgency in the simplest of touches. Seungmin’s body runs hot, like he scoops up the heat from the electric heater in the corner and amplifies it tenfold on his skin. At last, Woojin is warm.

Woojin can feel deft hands cup his chest, and he cannot help but push back into the body that spoons him from behind. He need not open his eyes to know that Seungmin stares at him with white hot need. The sensation is branded onto his skin.

Brain foggy with sleep, he doesn’t quite know what to make of the words that Seungmin speaks to him, “Woojin,” childish and urgent. “Woojin, it’s Christmas morning.”

Slowly the details click back together of all the things that they did yesterday, and all the things that they’d planned to do today.

“We’re going out remember Woojin? To get presents.”

Groggily, Woojin turns to his side and plants a poorly aimed, morning-breath kiss onto the corner of Seungmin’s mouth. “I have my present already.” Reaching around Seungmin’s lithe frame, he grabs him up and pulls Seungmin close. Seungmin fell asleep last night only in his flannel pajama top and no bottoms, and so it’s easy for Woojin to become lost in the smooth skin that rests just underneath the hem of Seungmin’s shirt. “My gift is here,” and he punctuates the statement with a sticky, open mouthed kiss that actually lands on Seungmin’s mouth this time.

Seungmin’s cock, bare and hard, rubs against Woojin’s clothed erection. It’s been a week since Seungmin came here, and since then their want for each other, coarse and gritty, has been refined.

More certain of themselves, and more certain of one another’s bodies, each attempt is better than the last.

“Yeah, well of course, I’d give you yours first.” Seungmin wriggles from his grasp and pulls the elastic band of his sweats downward.

Seungmin licks the palm of his hand and wraps his fingers around him.

Woojin will never cease to be amazed at how he can make something so simple feel so good.

But the pleasure is short lived. Seungmin only strokes him enough so that he transforms from sleepy and vaguely turned on to completely hard and at Seungmin’s mercy. Seungmin straddles Woojin, and his cock catches in the cleft of Seungmin’s ass.

Oh.

Woojin gropes blindly in the pillows and blankets finding the bottle of lubricant they’d bought together at the drugstore a few days ago. “Let me—”

“No,” Seungmin insists. He plucks the bottle from Woojin’s hand and spills lube onto Woojin’s cock. “I like the way it feels.”

“Go slow,” he could argue with his brother, and insist that he needed to be worked open. But the greedy idea of Seungmin shuddering because of the way he’s being stretched wins out. “Just because we did this last night doesn’t mean you can go fast.”

Seungmin acts like he listens, sinking down onto Woojin molten slow. “Ah—” Seungmin’s face contorts in pain. “Fuck, Woojin.”

“Shh, it’s alright,” Woojin soothes his younger brother. Wrapping a hand around Seungmin’s cock, he strokes him slowly.

Seungmin’s expression shifts slightly, trapped somewhere between discomfort and absolute want.

“Told you,” Woojin can feel every twitch and every pulse of Seungmin’s body when he’s buried inside like this. Every time, Seungmin charges forward, and leaves Woojin waiting in glowing agony. “To go slow.”  

“I’m fine,” Seungmin hisses between his teeth.

In his hand, Seungmin’s flagging erection pulses underneath his touch, and becomes hard once again.

But only when Seungmin’s clenching down on Woojin’s cock, and screwing his eyes shut with pleasure does he start to ride him gently.

Woojin knows that he isn’t going to last long at all. Never does when he fucks Seungmin, especially first thing in the morning. But today, somehow Seungmin looks sexier, feels softer. Envelops him in tight wet heat over, and over and over.

The way that Seungmin moves is absolutely spellbinding. Catching his own lip between his teeth, Seungmin abuses the soft flesh until his lips are red, puffy, and begging to be kissed. He splays his hands across Woojin’s chest and moves more quickly. Each rise and fall of Seungmin’s body announced with the smacking noise of skin against skin.

Not content to simply watch, Woojin makes the long sensuous journey down Seungmin’s body.  First, he circles the tip of Seungmin’s cock with the pad of his thumb. Then, he feels the weight of Seungmin’s sac in his hands before massaging Seungmin’s perineum.

Then his hand settles upon Seungmin’s cock; he fists it with firm strokes just the way he knows that Seungmin likes.

Woojin never lasts long, but luckily, neither does Seungmin. Like he knows. Like they’re made for each other. Like they feed off of one another’s frantic _not yet-right now_ energy.

Like he knows that he loves having the title of Seungmin’s brother. “Woojin, I’m going to cum.”

But Woojin’s cumming first, fast and hard before he feels the familiar splatter of Seungmin’s cum across his stomach.

* * *

 

When Seungmin was quite young, he had a fever that seemed to have no end. He couldn’t go to school, and he couldn’t get out of bed. Pinned in place by the small mountain of blankets his mother covered him, his body ran hot. His skin was covered in mottled, angry, red pink patches that were warm to the touch.

Christmas was no exception, including the morning he woke up with a fever of a hundred and one in France.

With them, Christmas is a production. Rented rooms in restaurants in high rise buildings. Gifts wrapped in shining paper, and money passed out in thick colorful envelopes…Assuming that they’re even at home for Christmas at all. Sometimes they went to warm places like Hawaii to get away from the cold. Other times, they went to Europe because it looks like the front of an embossed card.

This is the first Christmas in recent memory that Seungmin is both in Korea and isn’t sick. 

He’s used to Christmas mornings beginning with bitter medications, but today they are replaced by convenience store sweet bread, and nothing has ever tasted better.

They set up the Yamaha keyboard in the most obvious of locations. The cathedral is filled to the brim with people when they arrive: Locals, people visiting their parents, and tourists too. Snow falls lightly now, but the air is so wet that Seungmin can taste it on the tip of his tongue. The ground will be dusted in a fresh coat of snow by the time they pack up and head back home.

“This feels so weird,” Woojin puts down the speaker he carries to wipe his nose with a crumpled handkerchief. Seungmin recognizes the green and white speckled pattern immediately because it belongs to him. “Being at church at Christmas time, but not inside. I used to sing here on Christmas three or four times. Christmas eve, midnight mass, morning mass. We’d get home, and I’d just pass out at like noon. It was nice though. I’d fall asleep and dinner would be ready.”

“We’d usually travel a lot at Christmas,” Seungmin responds. “If I wasn’t sick, and I usually was, my parents would take me to go look at the big store displays in the shopping districts. They would let me pick stuff out my own gifts. Then I’d have to wait to have them gift wrapped in the store and reopen them at home.”

“What? That’s crazy.”

Woojin never seems to mind or call attention to the drastically different ways in which they were raised. Doesn’t make fun of, what Seungmin increasingly has to acknowledge, his skewed sense of normal and abnormal. Even more so than Woojin’s acceptance, he loves the way that he’s never once been made to feel out of place in Woojin’s life, even though he knows that his heart is torn open and left slightly ajar when he’s here in Jeonju.

“The church looks pretty today. Not so big, and cold, and scary.”

“Like a post card,” Seungmin responds. The image represents million or more words he’ll never know how to articulate.

Together, they sing carols outside of the church, capitalizing upon the generosity of others. People peel large bills from their wallets for no reason other than, “it’s Christmas.”

Although snow falls and sticks upon the ground, the sun shines defiantly upon them turning the landscape into a blinding white prism where all that he can see through squinted eyes is Woojin.

Snowflakes neutralize the heat of sunbeams, keeping him from growing hot and fitful.

It feels like when they sang down by the Han river, and it feels nothing like that at all because it’s impossible to believe that was only a few months ago.

It feels right. Like the air and Woojin’s voice finally cause the fever that’s burned in his body to break. All there’s left to do is heal.

* * *

 

When the eight o’clock service crowd shuffles out, and the nine-thirty service crowd is safely tucked inside, they pack up and resettle down at the open-air market.

Although Woojin has not been here in a very long time, he cannot say that he’s ever seen it packed with quite so many people. Stalls are decorated with Christmas lights and sparkling decorations. Despite the fact that it is barely ten in the morning, no more than three stalls within eyeshot sell fragrant mulled wine.

The north entrance to the market is occupied by a saxophone player who wears a coat so thick, Woojin wonders how she can reach around the thick quilted fabric to find the valves. Between a thick scarf a cap pulled down low, and messy bangs that obscure her face, the only thing he and Seungmin can see is a perpetual scowl that makes the brass instrument in her hands wail.

So, they find it best to resettle at the south entrance.

“You know what we should sing?” Seungmin slaps his side with his gloved hand with glee.

“Don’t say it.”

Seungmin bumps his hip nudging him away from the keyboard. The speaker isn’t plugged in, and Seungmin’s abandoned the microphone he was setting up. Regardless of that fact, his voice rings out, proud, triumphant, and on the cusp of a laugh. “I—don’t want a lot for Christmas.”

“Seungmin, we sang this song four times already this morning,” and they were outside of the cathedral for less than an hour.

Woojin goes through the motions, dutifully finishing the set up. With his actions, Seungmin’s performance comes to life, first the trill of the piano spills down the aisles of the marketplace, and then his voice. Seungmin plays the bridge into the verse with his eyes closed hips swinging.

And then Woojin pounces. He hip checks Seungmin, barely misses a single note, and takes over the vocals on the verse. “I don’t want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need.” Back and forth, and back and forth Seungmin and Woojin push one another out of the way. They may be off of the conservatory stage, but the inner drive for attention never fades.

Enraptured by their bickering confused as performance, passersby place bills into Seungmin’s upturned hat.

After a few songs, their voices are tired, and the hat is filled with money. “Let’s get some mulled wine.”

“Seungmin, we can’t go home drunk. My mom will kill me.”

“Just one. It’s Christmas,” Seungmin supplies as if that’s enough.

Woojin laughs, “alright. I’m going to go buy something for Mom, I’ll be right back.” Dutifully, he splits the money between himself and Seungmin and hands him a fistful of bills.  

It isn’t a lie. Woojin buys a small bracelet made with glass beads for his mother, a bottle of wine for his stepfather, and a Christmas cake for all of them later, and of course, one more thing.

Woojin knows that the best gifts of all come in the form of small bills when he’s packing up from the night. Waiters, and bar tenders, chefs and valets offer small bills like whispers of solidarity. He knows that when he returns, Seungmin will be waiting for him with such a gift, cheap hot wine in a paper cup.

Woojin knows that New Money kids drink champagne like they’re in the desert. They giftwrap themselves in trendy clothes they just can’t wait to tear off of one another. They peel bills out of their wallet like it’s a production. Woojin also knows that the wad of bills burns a hole in his pocket, and he’s eager to dress Seungmin in something, anything, of status.

What he chooses is simple polished steel. There isn’t much to choose from among the display cases of costume jewelry. In a way it’s almost fitting the way that they give each other rings best suited for their own tastes.

Just as expected, Seungmin waits for him with two cups in hand. Woojin makes a big show of plucking Seungmin’s cap from his head and stowing the ring inside. Then, he hands it back to Seungmin. “That should be enough to get things started, right?” It’s bad luck to start with an empty container.

When Seungmin puts it on his finger, Woojin feels a warmth that he knows will not fade.


End file.
